


Innocence Is Gone

by Asukachan07



Series: WestAllen AUs [5]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe, Angst, Cop Iris West, Crime Fighting, Dark Barry Allen, Dysfunctional Relationships, Multi, POV Multiple, Slow Burn, Soulmates AU of sort, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2020-12-07 11:04:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 29
Words: 112,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asukachan07/pseuds/Asukachan07
Summary: On Earth-572, Iris West and Barry Allen are enemies.





	1. No Place For Beginners Or Sensitive Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vani_vani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vani_vani/gifts).
  * Inspired by [There but for the grace of God, go I](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10238303) by [Leia_Naberrie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leia_Naberrie/pseuds/Leia_Naberrie). 

> Also gifted to WestallenIsMyHeart and swagstudentmilkshake5. I don't think that I would be posting yet another WestAllen fanfic if you and Vani_vani didn't show me constant support with your regular feedback. Thank you for being awesome <3
> 
> Someone once mentioned that an enemies/secret lovers WestAllen AU would be a cool addition to my WA series, and I agree, so here it is.
> 
> Work title is from "Bleeding Out" by Imagine Dragons.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sergeant Iris West is shocked by the identity of the notorious meta-human criminal she managed to arrest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the iconic "Smooth Operator" by Sade.

_ **2014** _

"Barry Allen?" Sergeant Iris West whispered incredulously when the face of the recently apprehended meta-human criminal was revealed.

The Flash, as the Special Ops were calling the speedster, had become the most dangerous criminal of Central City in less than a year, ever since people realized that he was a person and not just a supernatural streak of red lightning.

When Iris had graduated from the Academy, she had never expected to be shooting at bad guys with specialized stun guns or to be arresting them using handcuffs that were fresh out of some biotech R&D laboratory.

Yet there she was, newly transferred to a new precinct, the one to finally arrest The Flash months after he escalated from robbing banks to killing politicians and police officers.

And now Iris wondered if the speedster had frozen on the spot as she pulled the trigger because he had recognized her and not because she had shouted '_Police, freeze!_'.

No, no way that Barry Allen remembered her.

"You know him?" Special Forces Officer Major Eddie Thawne asked her with a frown.

"We went to Central City High together," the sergeant admitted right away. "Quiet, _ smartest _ kid in the entire school. Kept bringing awards and medals from science fairs and competitions…"

"It's always the quiet ones," the officer cynically commented with a shake of his head.

Iris looked back into the interrogation room on the other side of the one-way glass window, where Detective Singh was vainly trying to get the speedster to speak.

After five minutes of silence, Iris' direct superior left the criminal alone. 

Only then did Sergeant West notice that Thawne was staring at her.

"Is there a problem, Major?" she asked calmly.

"The Flash has killed no less than five police officers without scruples since he emerged," the soldier pointed out. "He's fast, stop-bullets-midair kind of fast, yet _ you _ were able to stun him."

"I'm a good shot," Iris assured.

"Doesn't matter to a speedster," Thawne argued bluntly. "It's as if he _ wanted _ you to arrest him. And now you're saying that you two know each other…"

"_Knew _ each other," Sergeant West corrected, "and barely. He was the school's number one science geek, I was an average GPA student. Our paths barely crossed, I don't think we took more than one class together."

"I'm not implying that you were aware of The Flash's real identity, Sergeant," the SF officer reassured. "I'm saying that you might matter to him for some reason, and that we could use that to our advantage."

Iris didn't like the sound of that.

"How?" she asked carefully.

"I know that you're new to the unit, but there's no better way to learn than on the go," Thawne claimed as he pointed at the monitor screen. "You arrested him, why not have you _ interrogate _ him too?"

"Me?" The police officer reacted, taken aback. "Yes, I'm new to this unit, so Detective Singh won't allow for such a breach of protocol."

Surprisingly, Singh was fine with the unusual set up.

"Here are the most important questions we need answers to," the stoic cop told her as he handed her a tablet. "You did good in Snart's unit, West, so I know that you can do this. We won't have The Flash under custody indefinitely," he reminded her with a glance at Major Thawne, "so in any case it will be good practice for you."

Right. Only petty meta-human criminals were kept at Iron Heights Penitentiary. The dangerous ones were escorted by the Special Forces to never be seen again.

Rumors said that the military experimented on these meta-humans with the intent of exploiting their powers. Iris shuddered at the idea of skinny, clumsy Barry Allen being tortured by ruthless soldiers.

Well, Barry Allen wasn't skinny anymore, she realized when she entered the interrogation room and took a critical look at the speedster.

He was still dressed in his suit, his cowl pulled back behind his neck. His lean muscles were outlined even through the black outfit.

Iris had told Thawne the truth when she'd said that she and Barry Allen had barely known each other. Their most significant interaction had been doing a group project in AP chemistry, and she'd lingered with him at the computer lab to type their final report. He'd been the one to voluntarily do most of the experiments, but Iris had put her superior writing skills to good use and thus contributed to their A plus.

West wouldn't have recognized Allen if it hadn't been for his eyes. Back in high school Iris had thought that Barry's eyes were a very pretty and rare shade of green, not boringly common like her dark brown eyes. She hadn't seen that shade on anyone else ever since.

Having those pretty green eyes latch onto her the second she got close to the table unnerved her. With the reminder that her new boss was counting on her, Sergeant West calmly drew and sat on the chair opposite the speedster.

"Hello, I am—" she started to introduce herself.

"Iris West," Allen interrupted her, and wow his voice was deeper than she recalled, that was for sure.

"You remember me," she couldn't help but comment before straightening up in her seat and pressing play on the recorder of the tablet. "Bartholomew Henry Allen, known alias The Flash, robbery and homicide suspect, arrest number M dash two three; interrogated by Sergeant Iris West of Central City Police Department on September third two thousand fourteen under the supervision of Detective David Singh and Special Forces Officer Major Eddie Thawne."

"Oh, good, now I know the name of that military blondie," Barry declared cheerfully, his smile displacing the freckles on his face. "Thanks, Iris!"

After a second of being freaked out by the obvious deranged behavior of the speedster, West jumped into the role of interrogator.

"What are the motive of your crimes?" She asked carefully, looking straight past Allen's head to stay focused. "Why did you kill Senator McMillan and—"

"Look me in the eyes when you're talking to me," the cuffed meta-human demanded.

His even and low tone chilled Iris to the bone, but she obeyed him anyway and barely suppressed a whimper of fear as her eyes met his.

Even if he hadn't robbed or killed anyone, Barry Allen could have gotten arrested for looking at people like _ that._

Like he could tie people down with the sheer intensity of his gaze before having his way with them.

Despite trusting the meta-cuffs on his wrists, Iris shifted in her chair to make sure that it wasn't actually possible. One never knew with those meta-humans.

"I wasn't imagining it, you did manage to get more beautiful since the last time I saw you," Allen commented offhandedly as he started leaning over the table.

Iris might be new at dealing with meta-humans, but she had dealt with men coming at her since she was in seventh grade. So she didn't lean away like he probably expected, but simply adopted her 'bored' expression.

"And it seems that you got _stupid_ since high school," she retorted with a shrug. "You get the power of moving faster than the speed of sound, and you decide to become a criminal in a city where the police are equipped to deal with your kind. Really, Allen?"

"_My _ kind?" He said, tilting his head to the side. "Last time I checked, I was still a member of _humankind_. You people like to use the term 'meta-human' to justify dumping us in Area 51, but we're still very much humans. We have _rights_, like anyone else."

"You forfeited most of these rights by killing people," Iris quickly countered, though she felt properly chastised by his words.

Until now, she _ had _ considered meta-humans as some sort of different _ breed _ of people. Freaks of nature—or rather, freaks of laboratory, for there was no doubt that all these extraordinary individuals were the results of some top secret science experiments gone wrong.

Which meant that none of those metas had asked for their powers. Iris couldn't fathom waking up one day shooting lasers from her eyes or changing the weather with a bare thought.

She couldn't fathom how terrifying it was to wake up one day and feel utterly _ wrong_.

How had she not thought about meta-humans from that angle until now?

"Do you confess to the murder of police officers Douglas Johnson, Thomas Collins and Andrew Larson?" She perfunctorily read from the prompt on the screen of the tablet, hiding the fact that the speedster had just turned her world upside down.

"Why, you didn't catch me on camera for those three?" The speedster asked back. "Figures that the CCTVs in district four aren't maintained properly. The poor don't deserve the privilege of feeling safe in the streets, do they, Iris?"

West blinked in confusion. Of the two of them, Iris was the least privileged.

The Allens were wealthy—old money, if the young cop remembered correctly. Mrs. Allen was always the most elegantly dressed at parents-teachers meetings. Many students would make remarks about her shoes being worth their parents' yearly salaries.

"Answer the question, Barry Allen," she redirected flatly, feeling less and less comfortable leading this interrogation.

Detective Singh had promised that she could leave or ask for back up if things didn't go well. There was that, at least.

"Johnson's the fat one, right?" The suspect asked rhetorically. "I did his wife a service, really, he was nothing more than a pig…"

"How dare you!" Iris exclaimed without meaning to.

Sergeant Johnson had been one of the few old-timers who had never whispered 'nepotism' behind her back on her first days at the new precinct. Melinda Johnson, Doug's wife, had barely been able to stand at her husband's funeral, she had been that devastated by her loss.

Barry Allen blinked in surprise at her outrage. He then looked her up and down before tilting his head to the side.

"_Sergeant _ Iris West," he echoed her introduction from earlier. "I haven't heard your name before, which should be impossible considering that your father is in charge here—a little bit of nepotism never hurt anyone, I'm not judging—so I wonder if you're new to this precinct. You would've started closer to home, right?"

The young cop pinched her lips.

"You _do_ act like you don't know the first thing about Johnson or Collins or even McMillan," the speedster resumed. "So, my assumption is correct, isn't it? You just transferred?"

"I'm the one asking questions here," Iris reminded him with barely restrained curiosity.

What did he mean, that she didn't know the first thing about the people he was being charged of murder for? And had the speedster actually killed her colleagues in district four? What would any of the guys do there?

The slow smile Barry Allen gave the sergeant made her worry that he had telepathic powers that could not be blocked by meta-cuffs.

"Yes, keep asking questions," he advised. "To others and to yourself. I was right to give you the benefit of the doubt, Iris."

Forget his smile, the way he enunciated her name made the new transfer want to barricade herself in a bunker. 

"It's too bad that you're on the wrong side of this war," he lamented with a shrug. "For now, that is."

"Who are your enemies in this war?" West rephrased one of the prompted questions to match his wording.

"Ah, but now that I know that you don't even _understand_ the stakes of the war, there's really no point in me telling you anything," the speedster claimed with a shrug of his shoulders. "But I'd very much like to reconnect...On a personal level."

Iris felt her face heat up in anger at his condescension and flirtatious tone.

She glared at the criminal, who hadn't looked intimidated or fearful since he got arrested and unmasked.

He was the epitome of 'unbothered' despite knowing that he couldn't use his powers. Despite being aware that the Special Forces were here to collect him.

_Huh._

Barry Allen was looking at her closely enough to detect the slight widening in Iris' eyes.

He subsequently threw his head back and exploded in the most unsettling laugh the woman had ever heard.

Maybe not all meta-humans were freaks, but this man she used to know definitely was one.

"Detective, something's not right!" The new transfer immediately reported as she shot off her chair, keeping her eyes on the suspect regardless of the urge to turn her head to the tinted glass window when she didn't hear back from her superior.

"You're so much better than the rest of them, Iris," the criminal told her once his laughter quieted down, and there again was that way her name rolled on his tongue.

Instinct made the sergeant step away from the table, walking backwards until she reached the door and tried to open it manually then with her keycard. The card reader didn't even beep, and the door remained locked shut.

Iris immediately unstrapped her regular gun from her holster—stun guns were too bulky to be carried around the precinct—and clicked off the safety as she aimed it at the cuffed speedster, moving to the left of the door in order not to obstruct the entrance.

"Good girl," the speedster praised almost sweetly but his tone didn't register when Iris noticed that the camera recording the interrogation was off.

Since when? Why hadn't anyone checked on her if there had been a malfunction?

She stared back at Barry Allen and she was definitely going mad with panic because the first thought that crossed her mind then was that Barry Allen was _unfairly_ _attractive_.

And since clearly her day hadn't been absurd enough, a disc of blue light surged out of nowhere behind Allen.

"Oh _ shit_," the sergeant cursed as she tried to safely aim past the speedster at the the blue surface.

A concentrated blast of air knocked her gun out of her hands before she could get a good look at whatever or whoever jumped out of it. Iris whimpered at the sharp pain that coursed through her entire right hand and the tips of her left fingers.

"Do you know how hard it is to breach into a place I've never been before, man?" An average height man in a dark brown leather suit, with golden goggles and ridiculously great hair said after he used another blast of air coming _ out of his hand _ to break apart Barry's meta-cuffs.

Another sound attempted to escape Sergeant West's throat when red lightning lit up the speedster's eyes as if he was a literal demon from hell, but she swallowed it down as she silently shook off the pain from the blast.

In a wink of an eye, Barry Allen left his chair to stand by the wall adjacent to it, pinning the new guy against it with an impressive grip of his throat.

"Don't you dare lay a finger on her _ever_ again, understand?" the speedster said, his vibrating voice even more terrifying than his natural one.

"The hell? That was legit self-defense! And I barely grazed her!" The shorter man squealed painfully.

Barry Allen released the newcomer, who ostentatiously rubbed his neck as he turned his face towards West. She couldn't see his eyes behind the colored glasses but she glared back anyway.

Finally—Iris realized with alarm that she had been vulnerable to a cop-killing speedster for almost a whole damn _minute_—the door opened on the sergeant's right, Major Thawne taking point with a stun gun.

The guy with the long hair threw a blast of air that collided with the electric charge of the special gun. The impact made Iris' ears ring.

As Detective Singh started shooting in turn, the sergeant crouched down then stretched forward on her knees to grab her own gun a few feet ahead.

She felt a mild gush of air fan her face, and her heart almost gave away when Barry Allen appeared right in front of her—behind Thawne and Singh, and between Iris and her _ gun._

Time seemed to slow down—or maybe it _did_ since this was a speedster—as Allen tucked fly away hairs behind her ear, so delicately that she barely felt his gloved fingers. His other hand was holding her shoulder just as gently, emitting a low thrum of energy that Iris felt through the sleeve of her uniform. Threads of lightning snapped around them, caging them in some bubble, their red color promising blood to whoever trespassed their electrifying boundaries.

The speedster had put his mask back on, but Sergeant West could see how his eyes, green again, looked at her with a tenderness that was contrary to everything he'd done so far.

"Wish we'd met again sooner," he whispered, his face so close to hers that Iris very possibly inhaled the carbon dioxide of his exhalation.

Which was why her gaze fell to his lips, to glare at them because they were competing with hers for the little oxygen that floated between her and Barry Allen. That _definitely_ was the reason why Iris fucking stared at a murderer's mouth while her heart rammed against her ribcage and her throat dried up.

"Yeah?" Barry Allen reacted knowingly, his eyed also dipping to her lips then back up to lock with hers, his small but fond smile making Iris' stomach turn in indescribable ways. "I was serious about wanting to reconnect, you know. Let's go on a few dates for a start, umm? No kissing until the third one."

"You are out of your mind if you think that I'd date a killer like you," Iris had the good sense to reply behind gritted teeth, forcing disdain to show in her eyes as she kept holding his soft gaze.

Her voice sounded wrong, as if she was hearing herself from a phone on speaker.

"There are no killers _like_ me," the speedster bragged playfully. "I'm one of a kind. You'll come to see that, _Sergeant West_. Also, I _have been_ out of my mind crazy in love with you since I was seventeen. Don't take too long to catch up, time goes excruciatingly slow for me now that I'm a speedster."

He sped out of the room before Iris had the time to react to his confession—_and_ arrogant assumption that she could ever return his twisted feelings!

_What the hell?_

"What the hell?" Major Thawne shouted angrily into the room.

Both The Flash and the other meta had disappeared, and only the smell of electric burn in the air indicated that there had been an altercation.

"And you!" The military man called out West as she straightened back to her feet with her useless gun in hand, "I want a full behavioral analysis report on Barry Allen's deameanor during the interrogation, and it better match what _my_ report will say of what I saw before the camera cut off."

"Sergeant West is not trained to submit formal B.A. reports," Detective Singh intervened. "I can write you one instead."

"Oh, but _of course_ you're going to submit one as well," Thawne retorted. "Along with a report on the _targeted_ malfunction of the automated systems of this room. This is the headquarter of the meta-human unit, a breach of security like this one should've _never_ happened! Your tech guys have twelve hours to recover the footage until I get my own guys on it."

"I'm meeting your father next," he informed Iris, "to confirm that you and The Flash _barely_ knew each other, and to get his approval to relieve you from your supervising duties for the next seventy-two hours. By then I want to know: one, why The Flash wanted to talk to _you_ specifically; two, what this freak of nature's cryptic words about Johnson mean and three, how the fuck we can catch him again.I want you to work with my team to interview _everyone_ who has exchanged even the most mundane word with Barry Allen in the past year. Understood?"

The young woman resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the Special Forces officer's dramatics. She glanced at her direct superior instead.

Singh nodded with a quiet sigh, an unspoken order to comply.

"Understood," she answered flatly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might or might not closely follow the Earth-572 story arc from my other WA fic "Breaking The Time Loop," which I must complete before posting another chapter for this one. I'm juggling too many WIPs!
> 
> Check out the link to an even cooler Dark!Barry WestAllen fic that helped me write this one. The author hasn't abandoned it, so make sure to leave kudos and comments to show interest!


	2. Each Classic Case

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry wakes up after a memorable night; Iris and Eddie get shut down by Joe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally an update!
> 
> There's nothing very exciting in this chapter, just a little teaser about Iris and Barry eventually pairing up. There will be other time skips, possibly in all future chapters.
> 
> Chapter title from "Smooth Operator" again.

**2016**

Barry woke up with the worst hangover ever.

_ What the hell? _

Ah, the meta-gene inhibitor. Wincing at how the slightest movement made him want to hurl, the speedster ripped off the fast-delivery patch from his upper arm.

How long would it take for his... Nevermind. Thank goodness for super metabolism.

With his headache fading away by the second—his whole body had been aching, actually—the speedster rolled over to lay flat on his front and get another hour or so of sleep before Cisco called him in.

The fruity smell on his bedsheets got him on high alert right away, and in a flash he was standing by the end of the bed.

No one was there, but memories of the last twelve hours flooded in his mind as he puzzled over the unmade left side of his bed.

A recon mission in district four...Iris almost blowing her cover…Then almost blowing _ his _ cover…Getting access to the V.I.P lounge…Making out with Iris.

_ Wait a— _

Yes, he’d been drunk as hell, but he remembered everything: Iris getting loose and enticing the entire room with her dance moves; him getting all possessive when that tattooed thug tried to make a grab at her; Iris managing to spike everyone’s drink and to get the password to the backroom door even as she kissed his neck like she actually wanted him; Barry hauling up Silvertongue to unlock the door with the retina scanner after Iris typed in the password…

Tumbling through the backroom, fumbling to wipe off their fingerprints after taking pictures of most of the paperwork, team effort to get Silvertongue back on his seat, team effort to exit the club without busting their asses, catching a cab back to Barry’s place and _ holy shit! _

_ Barry, you’re drunk! _

_ So are you! _

_ Consent is important...Can’t give consent while under the influx...Influx? _

_ Influence, I think. _

_ Yeah, that. Hey, stop…No no no, keep going, that feels so good! _

_ You smell great. _

_ We both smell like booze, you idiot. _

_ Your hair! I mean your hair smells great. _

_ It’s just my heat protectant. _

_ Like on my suit? Ugh I’m gonna barf. _

_ I’m not kissing you if you do. But I need to pee. _

_ … _

_ ... _

_ How do you get that dress off! _

_ Zipper. Back? No on the side, here…Hands off, you’ll rip it! I just bought the damn dress! _

_ Fuck you’re gorgeous. _

_ Not so bad yourself, Allen. Oh, yeah, those biceps feel as good as they look. God, your abs! _

_ Thanks. _

_ Ugh, I’m getting dizzy. _

_ No, no dizziness. It leads to barfing. _

_ Bed? _

_ Bed. _

That was it. _ That was it? _

Alright, no, that made sense. Barry normally couldn’t handle his alcohol, so passing out as soon as he got horizontal made sense.

And that explained why he was still alive after fooling around with Sergeant Iris West without explicit consent. She would've shot him in his sleep as soon as she woke up if they'd gone any further.

Instead she'd sneaked out of his place without leaving so much as a note...Or a text message. She'd probably act like nothing happened the next time they saw each other. Typical.

Lord have mercy, she had a fantastic ass. Great boobs, too, but they’d been mostly hidden by her bra. And _ her legs_! Her legs belonged around his hips, and her arms around his neck…

Barry didn’t know what he had done in his previous life, that the closest he got to being with the woman he'd been in love with for a decade was a drunk makeout session during a recon mission, which had led to _ nothing at all._

_Recon mission_. Shit, Iris had the pictures of half of the lists he needed.

The speedster face-planted on his bed again and ignored the urge to rub himself one when the fruity scent of Iris ‘heat protectant’ hit his nostrils again—the hell would her hair need a fireproof polymer coating for? Maybe it was standard for all members of the meta-human fighting unit? But why would hers smell so good when on his suit it just smelled like plastic?

* * *

**2014**

"Come again?" Major Thawne requested, staring at Captain Joe West.

It was still odd to use a title when thinking about her father, but Iris had forced herself to get used to it. When they both had their badges on, he was her boss, not her dad.

"You heard me right the first time around, Major," the older man chided. "You are to drop the investigation on The Flash, and not mention any findings you've made so far with anyone, even members of your own team."

Iris felt as outraged as the military man looked.

What the hell? Barry Allen had played them right inside their own walls, and they were supposed to forget that Iris even arrested him in the first place?

"The camera malfunction, the locked door, and now this?" Thawne listed off. "I thought that your unit was just full of incompetent people, but you're actually dirty!"

"Excuse me?" Both sergeant and captain exclaimed with twin anger.

"How else would you explain the fact that you're ordering that we abandon the pursuit of a man who killed a senator and five police officers?" The major questioned. "A man who is clearly after your own daughter?"

"What did you just say?" Joe West boomed as he shot off his seat.

"Haven't read the reports yet, have you?" Eddie asked rhetorically. "The Flash wasn't talking until me and Singh agreed to let West, I mean Sergeant West, lead the interrogation. Though he mostly flirted with her, the guy was confessing to the unsubstantiated murder of officer Johnson when the camera stopped recording. Then me and Singh were locked inside our room, and your daughter was locked up with that cop killer for God knows how long.

"Five minutes from the moment I detected the camera malfunction," Iris specified, looking at her horrified father. "One of them during which the suspect had his meta-cuffs off. Thankfully he was distracted at that time, and then Detective Singh and Major Thawne unlocked the door."

Captain West had been looking back and forth between the two of them, his eyes wide and lips slightly parted in shock.

"Captain," the soldier said, "I came straight from D.C. to deal with this serial killer, and for weeks I had no lead. Then today, your newly transferred daughter not only catches the guy, but gets him to talk. She was getting us answers, _ motives _ to this psychopath's actions. We're onto something. How the hell do we get shut down before you, the leader of the meta-human task force, gets to even know what happened down there with the most dangerous meta-human in your city?"

The chief glared at Thawne, but after a moment of tense silence he let out a long sigh and dropped back into his seat.

"This is a mess," he commented as he rubbed his forehead before looking back up at the special force officer.

"Right after I was notified of The Flash's arrest,” the Captain started “I got a call from Mayor Bellows asking me to release the speedster with no questions asked. I told him that it wasn’t even remotely acceptable, but the mayor warned me that things would get ugly freaking fast if I didn’t cooperate. I hung up on him.”

“Oh,” both Iris and Eddie reacted.

“But he called back just after I got a notice that our surveillance system was down and that there were problems with the door locking mechanism. Bellows told me that we’d been hacked, and that this would be the least of our problems if I kept The Flash in custody. But as long as I keep my people quiet about the whole thing, we should be fine.”

“What the hell,” Thawne whispered.

“You’re telling me that Barry Allen has Bellows under his thumb?” Iris asked, incredulous. “Our _ mayor _?”

“Barry Allen?” her father repeated. “As in your classmate from high school?”

“You remember him?” the sergeant asked, surprised.

Captain West eyed Eddie Thawne, who stared back.

“Barry Allen is The Flash?” Joe West questioned more than stated. “That’s not possible. That kid couldn’t hurt a fly!”

“Like I told your daughter, it’s always the quiet ones,” the major commented.

The police chief let out a long sigh and rubbed his beard, squeezing his eyes shut before they popped open as if he’d just realized something.

“What is it, dad?” Iris asked right away, earning a raised eyebrow. “I mean, Captain?”

“Nothing,” he lied so blatantly that SFO Thawne cleared his throat.

“Nothing important,” Captain West insisted. “Barry Allen had a crush on you back then, so that explains him not hurting you while he’s killed others of our own. Thank God for silver linings.”

Iris blinked at her father and boss.

Barry Allen had a crush on her? Yes, the guy had confessed his feelings less than two hour ago, but her dad _ knew _?

“So, in your professional opinion, would you say that your daughter and Barry Allen barely knew each other?” Thawne questioned.

“Professional opinion,” Joe repeated flatly just as Iris rolled her eyes.

“Is that a yes or no, Captain?” the military man insisted.

“If you think that you’re going to interrogate me in my precinct, in my office, in front of my daughter who’s also my subordinate, you’re totally out of your mind, _ Major _,” the older man replied after he straightened up to his superior height.

“The Flash is a dangerous—” Eddie started.

“I just told you that this case. Is. Closed!” the chief enunciated clearly. “Matter of fact, there’s no case. Whatever report you, Detective Singh and Sergeant West wrote is to be disposed of permanently.”

“Captain,” Iris tried to intervene.

This couldn’t be happening. They were backing off after getting intimidated by a criminal through their corrupt mayor?

“That’s an order, Sergeant!” her father commanded. “As for you, Major, feel free to consult your C.O. on how to proceed. Unless you’re assigned another mission in Central City, you and your team have no reason to be here. Take as long as you need to pack up, but don’t breathe a word about The Flash, or I’ll have you deal with Bellows himself.”

“I’d gladly talk to your mayor,” the younger man mumbled.

“Have I made myself clear, Major?” Captain West asked.

“You have,” Thawne replied before leaving the office, not quite slamming the door behind him.

“Dude has hypertension or something,” Iris commented quietly.

“What the hell, Iris?” her father whisper-yelled as he walked around his desk to squeeze her in a bear hug.

“What were you doing out there in the first place?” he interrogated her as he held her at arms’ length. “You’re a supervising officer!”

“No one respects me here!” she informed him, hating how whiney she sounded. “I had to show Mendez and the others that I can do the job I send them to do. It was supposed to be a routine patrol!”

“There’s no ‘routine patrol’ for us!” Joe corrected her. “We’re the _ meta-human fighting unit! _ Those freaks all have different powers, they’re _ unpredictable _!”

Iris internally winced at the word ‘freaks’.

Yes, those people were criminals, and yes they had special abilities. But they were still _ human beings, _ not _ freaks _. And that wasn’t just because Barry had said that. It was true.

“I’m trained to handle meta-humans just like everyone, Captain.” she reminded her boss as neutrally as she could as she stepped away from his hold. “If you didn’t want me to deal with them, you should’ve rejected my transfer request.”

“You know damn well that my hands were tied on the matter,” he bit out before stomping back to his chair.

Iris remained quiet as he grunted his displeasure.

“Heaven, Iris, you got singled out by the Dark Speedster,” the chief stated shakily. “A _ cop killer _…”

“He didn’t see me as a threat,” she tried to reassure her father. “He said that I didn’t know the first—”

“I don’t wanna know what lies he tried to feed you,” he cut her off. “And I do trust that you didn’t buy any of his words, Sergeant.”

_ He made good points about district four _, she thought to herself.

“No, sir, I did not believe the criminal,” she said out loud.

“Good,” the captain replied. “I still can’t believe it. _ Barry Allen _?”

“How did you know that he had a crush on me?” Iris couldn’t help asking. “I didn’t know that…”

“Maybe because he didn’t act like all those boys who wanted to be your prom date,” Joe explained with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You only brought him home once for some draft…”

“Our AP chemistry final report,” the young woman provided.

“Something like that,” he confirmed with a shrug. “You introduced him, he stuttered hello, that was normal. But, the Allens were comfortable, more than us, so for a minute I was confused by how he looked around the house like it was some palace. Then it clicked. It was the home of _ his princess _, so he saw it like a castle.”

“Dad!” the sergeant chided just as her father chuckled.

“The way he looked at you whenever you spoke,” Joe West recalled with an amused smile. “And how he got red as a tomato when he saw me watching him. He tried to be all gentlemanly opening the door for you and almost whacked his face against it. Funny kid._ Good kid _ . You’d brought so many ‘classmates’ home, but except for Linda he’s the most memorable one. That boy _ liked you _, Iris. The right way, not like those other kids with their wandering eyes and hands.”

Iris struggled not to gape. Her father hadn’t approved of a single boy she’d dated back in high school, not even Mason Bridge who’d been the most mature and level-headed in all of CC High. He’d obtained a full scholarship at Coast City U, unfortunately, and didn’t believe in long-distance relationships, so after crying her broken heart out Iris had moved on. It was hard to believe that any boy had actually earned her father's respect back then, even harder to think that sweet, quiet Barry Allen had turned into the most wanted criminal in the city.

“Seems like he still does,” the police chief added with a slight frown. “Let me see if I can speed up the process of getting those new, smaller stun guns from Palmer Tech. I don’t care if anyone yells nepotism, I’m putting you on the list for the first training session with those. And meta-dampening collars would be nice. I’m sure that Ramon industries has something even better, but they’re ignoring us.”

“I heard that they had a bad deal with the army a few years back and it almost got them bankrupt,” Iris informed her dad. “I hate it when they loop us with the military.”

“Tell me about it,” the captain agreed with a sigh. “Well, you’re free to go, Sergeant West. Make sure you debrief Mendez and whoever was involved in the Flash’s arrest.”

“Are we really letting a criminal shut us down, Captain?” Iris had to say.

“We received _ orders from the mayor _,” Joe corrected her. “We respect the chain of command, whether or not we like what we’re told to do.”

“But Bellows is clearly—”

“Go debrief Mendez,” he didn’t let her finish.

Iris pinched her lips to stop herself from complaining. She nodded, muttered a ‘yes sir’ and left to find Mendez.

“Yeah, I thought the whole thing was too easy in the first place,” the officer commented with a shrug. "As if a newbie like you could actually catch the most notorious criminal in all of Central City.”

See, this is what Iris had to deal with. And her father wanted her to just sit at her desk all day and smile at those condescending subordinates?

The sergeant spent the rest of the afternoon scheduling shifts and training sessions.

Those training sessions were a joke. Iris had read the reports, and there were meta-humans who could fly and shoot laser beams with their eyes. The average police officer wasn’t even equipped to survive an assault from such people, how could they protect civilians on top of it?

The only group in the meta-human fighting unit who seemed qualified enough to face off meta-humans was the S.W.A.T team. Heavy gear, good marksmanship, cohesive deployment…These guys were the only ones who made clean arrests.

Iris had just transferred to the unit and would be stuck to desk-duties for a while, especially now that her dad knew that she was sneaking out on patrols. 

But in a couple of months, she could request S.W.A.T. training for herself and everyone under her. That might still not be enough to catch the fastest man alive, but The Flash wasn’t the only powered criminal out there.

At the end of her shift, Iris received a call on her personal cell phone.

It was an anonymous caller, and normally the young woman rejected those, but what if it was Barry Allen?

_ You _ _ do _ _ act like you don't know the first thing about Johnson or Collins or even McMillan. _Those words from the speedster had really shaken the cop.

Yes, the whole Flash case was shady as hell, but not just on his side. Something was very off about the deaths of Johnson, Collins and Larson.

“West,” she said as she picked up the call.

“Sergeant West,” a modified voice spoke calmly. “Meet me under the Spruce Bridge at eleven hundred. Alone. Feel free to come armed, but you won’t need your gun. I’ll wait five minutes before meeting you to make sure that you’re not followed. Be late and the meeting will be cancelled.”

The caller hung up without waiting for her confirmation.

Her heart beating loudly in her ears, Iris casually inspected her surroundings as she faked to check if her call was still connected and shrugged before pocketing her phone.

No one had seen her receiving an anonymous call from possibly the most dangerous criminal in the city.

It was eight thirty. She had time for dinner, changing into inconspicuous clothes, and heading to Spruce—in district four.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's the mysterious caller???
> 
> The next chapter will be totally in Barry's POV.


	3. Double Cross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry gains a team after losing a potential ally.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me a while, but here it is! Barry's POV. Hope you like it!
> 
> Chapter title still from "Smooth Operator" by Sade. Let's see how long I can use it for.

**2014**

“You choked me!” Cisco shouted as he threw his goggles on the main desk of his office at Ramon Industries. “I busted my ass to get Bellows on the phone, to hack into CCPD’s security system, to come to your rescue myself, and you fucking _ choked _ me!”

“I could’ve walked out of there on my own just fine,” Barry assured as he took down his cowl. “And if you’d hacked into the police's system, then you should’ve known that the woman you almost amputated with your air waves is _ Iris West _.”

He saw the engineer and businessman frown while running a hand through his hair.

“Iris West, yeah I saw that, what…” Reverb started before freezing as his hand came down his face, rubbing his jaw. “Holy shit, _ the _ Iris West? Fuck, man, I didn't realize...Okay, first of all, she _ is _ beautiful. Always thought that you were overselling that part.”

“Glad that you agree,” the speedster drawled as he noticed the holographic projection of Cisco’s calendar next to his desktop.

The CEO had missed a video conference with a client from Hong Kong an hour ago. He had missed it to save him.

Yet somehow, Barry couldn’t find it in himself to feel grateful. Cisco had let him down in many other situations, this _ one _ rescue didn’t change that.

“Second of all, since when is she in _ district seven _?” the breacher asked. “I’ve never heard of her since you started your vendetta against that precinct.”

“_ My _ vendetta?” Barry repeated, incredulous. “There’s a _war_ being waged in our city! This isn’t me getting revenge! Are you for real?”

“You can’t wage a war against the _police _ or _the military!_” Cisco argued vehemently, gesticulating with his hands even as he took off his jacket. “You certainly _ shouldn’t _drag us into this mess. None of us can afford to be caught in the crossfire between you and Eiling, man. Our company is finally out of the red…”

“Thanks to _ me _ getting us the money to do so!” The Flash reminded his friend, who was smoothing down the button down he’d worn under his suit. 

“And I own over half of this company,” the speedster kept going. “I_ know _ that we have to be careful!”

“Not ‘we’, _ you _ have to be careful!” the CEO of Ramon Industries corrected him as he pointed at him, then rolled his eyes at his own wrist as he detected a loose cuff. “I admit now that you were right to threaten Bellows right after…What you did to McMillan. He cooperated as soon as I told him that I was calling on your behalf. He’s useful.”

Barry rolled his eyes at Cisco’s auto-censorship of the word ‘kill’. The entire city knew that the Dark Speedster had murdered the senator with his bare hands.

“But Bellows said that Joe West didn’t sound very cooperative when he ordered the police to discard your case,” the engineer informed him as he pulled out a tie from one of the many drawers of his large desk. “So CCPD might let the Special Forces continue to track you down. Heck, Joe West himself might personally hunt you down the minute he learns that you’re into his _ daughter _!”

“He can hunt me down, I can’t wait to talk to him,” Barry pointed out. “He’s only alive because I have no proof that he’s dirty, and maybe a face to face with him might clear things out on that front.”

“Barry, _ let it go _,” Cisco pleaded before falling into his wide leather chair, toeing off his boots and shoving them under his desk. “You took down McMillan, you have Bellows on speed dial, the cops directly responsible for the ‘accident’ are six feet under…” he summarized as he was changing back into his dress pants.

“There are _ others _!” the speedster reminded him. “Others who are dirty, and others who oppress meta-humans! Eiling isn’t the only bad guy!”

“As far as the law is concerned, _ you _ are the bad guy, Barry!” his friend argued. “You’ve _ killed _ people! When you became The Flash, you said that you were going to _ protect _ people!”

“_ I am _ protecting them!” Barry countered. “The _ meta-humans _, because that’s who we are responsible for!”

He couldn’t believe that he was the only one in the team still committed to the cause. He couldn’t believe that _ Cisco _, of all people, was accusing him of going too far.

“You are ultimately responsible for _ everything _ that I’ve done, Cisco,” he reminded his friend, who narrowed his eyes at him.

“We were _ sabotaged _ ,” the engineer recounted. “Turning people into meta-humans, some of which were my own employees, some of whom _ died _…That’s not on me. Don’t try to guilt trip me now.”

Barry was about to refresh his friend’s memory about the whole story when Cisco held up a hand.

“I’d love to keep playing the blame game, but I need to check if I can reschedule the meeting with XG Jishu,” he announced, concluding their argument abruptly as he wiped off invisible dust from his suit. “I can’t get you your money back if I don’t land us contracts, and a contract with XG would open a dam to many others.”

Before Barry could demand that they finish this ‘blame game’, Cisco called in his P.A., forcing the speedster to phase through the walls and speed out of the CEO’s office to reach his own in the basement.

Barry’s new office was isolated on a level without any other staff around, and very few of the current employees even knew that it existed, that _ Barry Allen _ existed. The speedster had no idea how Cisco kept his board of directors from asking questions about the guy who owned more than half of the company, but his privacy was respected. 

Barry had never become an official employee of Ramon Industry because for years, he’d hoped to get hired by the police as a forensics scientist. In the end, he had worked with and for Cisco for free once the company had launched, and at first that had been fine with him. 

He had been grateful to reconnect with his friends from S.T.A.R. Labs when he returned to Central City. To reconnect with people who _ understood _ him, who knew of his pain and anger.

Before the particle accelerator explosion, Barry had fit in quite well with the other members of the biomolecular team of the R&D department. Nowadays, however, he didn’t have the time to socialize. He read reports, contributed to budget proposals, and peer-reviewed research articles, but only reported to Caitlin or Cisco himself. He still wasn’t paid for any of this and he didn’t care. Since becoming a thief, Barry hadn’t needed a paycheck. Whatever he needed, he_ took _ it in the blink of an eye.

Once Cisco’s company started making profits, which seemed to be in the immediate future, the speedster would be rich without having to rob again. But he wouldn’t use any of that money right away, not until he left Central City. Barry knew that once the war was over, he wouldn’t be able to stay in his hometown. It was already hard to speed through the streets that used to evoke such good memories, but had become a war zone.

At least now there was Iris.

_ Iris _. Barry truly wished that they’d reunited much earlier. He just knew that she would’ve made a difference in his life. She could’ve saved him from the darkness, could've prevented his lightning from turning red.

God, he wanted her even more now that she wasn’t just a deeply cherished memory in his head.

She was even more attractive than before, and it wasn’t just her looks. That benevolent aura about her had become stronger. The aura that had made her loved by all at CC high. The one that made people _ trust _ her, even a criminal she was interrogating after knocking him out with a stun gun.

That aura belied the outwardly tough personality that Iris had projected in the interrogation room, but she was a cop, so it made sense that she wouldn’t display the sunny disposition Barry remembered she had. Though he had joked about nepotism getting Iris in the district seven precinct, Barry was convinced that she deserved her rank and affectation. Iris West was a strong-willed, intelligent and persevering woman. 

And she might just be the key to ending the war.

For years Barry had seen CCPD solely as the enemy. The cops, who were supposed to _ protect _ the city, were among the ones _ enabling _ crime to thrive in it. If there were good officers among them, they were silent, which was just as bad as being in the pockets of corrupt politicians.

But Sergeant Iris West was _ innocent _ of the sins that Chyre, Payne, Johnson, Collins and Larson had committed against Central City, against meta-humans, against Barry and his loved ones. She knew nothing of the double lives these men had led.

Barry would gladly educate her on everything she needed to know to help him cleanse CCPD of its parasites, but he needed to tread carefully.

Joe West was her father after all, and she worked with David Singh. Either or both men had known about Barry wanting to become a CSI for the district seven precinct, so they might know who had rejected his application back then even though his resume had been perfect.

Barry had been looking for that person, who must have rejected his candidacy to prevent him from having access to a specific closed case. Barry knew that it hadn’t been McMillan’s idea. The politician couldn’t have known about it back then, he had been too busy running his campaign.

Maybe Iris could figure out this unknown variable for the speedster. She seemed genuinely driven to uncover the truth, and that could only work in Barry’s favor. Everyone else involved in this war was a hypocrite or a coward. 

And he had to make sure that no one tried to turn her to their side. She did seem a bit naive about her own world, so she might be easily swayed to see him as a monster—which he was, but that didn't make his enemies saints.

Well, no time like the present, right? He had to talk to her soon if he wanted to take her on dates, too.

Fuck, dating Iris West after not seeing her for years and becoming a criminal while she'd become a cop sounded more impossible than gaining powers after being exposed to dark matter...

Not really, no. She’d barely remembered him, but she’d shown clear signs of being _attracted_ to him. He had better chances now than he did back in high school, forbidden relationship and all.

So Barry logged in on his computer, and five minutes later smiled as he easily infiltrated the CCPD’s work log.

**Six days later**

“Iris,” is all he could say between labored breaths as the pain of the gunshot seared his shoulder.

A trap. She’d led him into a trap, and he’d sped right into it.

He should’ve listened to Cisco. Why did he never listen to Cisco?

“Not so smug now, huh, Flash?” Major Eddie Thawne mocked him, and the speedster heard Iris _ snicker _.

He’d never felt so betrayed. To her he was probably just some guy from high school turned criminal, but to him, she was…She_ had been _…

Rage was swiftly overtaking his shock and heartbreak, and he winced at the way his flesh was mending—was he tripping or were his powers a bit slow? And how come Iris' shot had been so off? Maybe she had meant to only graze him?

It didn’t matter. She _had _ shot him. She had picked her side in the war. She was _ the enemy _ now.

The charge of a stun gun made Barry yell as he tried to stand back up, his red lightning blinking out from around him as black stars dotted his peripheral vision.

_ Don’t pass out, don’t pass out, don’t pass out _, he chanted to himself vainly.

Those stun guns were efficient. Ray Palmer was lucky to be the real life friend of a friend, or he’d be dead for providing the police with those weapons.

The flash of a blue light in front of him made the speedster whisper “speaking of a friend,” before he fell back down on the ground.

He woke up in R.I.’s infirmary, which was unsurprisingly empty at this late hour.

“This is the first time that I’ve had to operate on you,” Caitlin’s reproachful voice said from across the room. “Your wound didn’t close properly, it would’ve scarred. I suspected that stun gun charges could affect our powers, but I’m not happy about the way my hypothesis was supported.” 

Without even looking at her, the speedster knew that the doctor was wearing the permanent scowl reserved for him whenever he got hurt. She hated how he’d become careless about his health after she’d announced that he had extremely efficient regenerative powers.

“So it won’t scar now? I was hoping to keep a memento,” he joked as he turned his head to look at her.

She was wearing a robe under her white lab coat. Cisco had very likely breached her there directly from her bedroom. Barry might get an earful from Ronnie in the next few hours.

“A memento of the time the woman you like_ betrayed _ you?” Caitlin asked with a frown. “Not that it’s really a betrayal. She’s a cop, and you’re a dangerous criminal. Cisco warned you that meeting her wouldn’t go well.”

“Cisco didn’t want my meeting with her to go well,” the speedster accused as he sat up on the bed, satisfied to only feel a mild soreness in his shoulder. “Because that would have earned me an ally in the war I have been waging _ alone _ against the people who want us meta-humans dead.”

“Nobody wants us _ dead _ , Barry,” Dr. Snow objected mildly, her voice adopting that condescending tone that she used when she was trying to be patient with a particularly slow intern. “General Eiling is one man in the army whose obsession for meta-humans has made him interested in Central City. As far as we know, he only _ studies _ metas. That’s illegal, but not _ lethal _ . Also, CCPD arrests meta-humans among other _criminals_. Those of us who don’t break the law are left alone.”

“I broke the law to get the money to keep this company running,” Barry reminded her behind gritted teeth. “I guess that I was stupid to think that any of you would show me any gratitude for that. But you don’t owe me anything right? Publicly I don’t even work for you guys. Barry Allen ceased to exist the night the particle accelerator _ failed _ to fulfill _ Cisco’s _ dream.”

“Like you wouldn’t have celebrated with us if _Dr. Wells and Dr. Morgan’s dream_ had been realized!” the bioengineer argued. “Cisco had done everything right! It’s not his fault that everything went wrong that night. And you’re the one who decided to become The Flash twenty-four seven. No one asked you to give up your identity as Barry Allen.”

“Someone had to keep an eye on the thousands of meta-humans out there!” he reminded her. “If we'd done that as a team, I could’ve had a life outside of being the Dark Speedster. But you didn’t. You’re a doctor, Caitlin. You swore _an oath_ to help others to the best of your ability, but when duty called, you didn’t answer.”

The young woman’s glaring eyes turned tearful in a few seconds, and Barry felt terrible for making her feel bad.

He knew that she couldn’t have helped him two years ago. She had been in even more pain than him back then.

“Sorry, Caitlin, that was unfair,” he apologized, but gave up his attempt to get out of the bed to hug her when she glared back at him.

“Yes that _ was _ unfair, but I forgive you,” she replied as she wiped away her tears before they could spill down her face. “And I didnt stay just to instruct you to take it easy after the surgery. I’m here to tell you that I’m done being a coward. We all are, but we didn’t want to tell you until we thought that you’d be open to our proposition.”

“What proposition?” he questioned, curious, and quite frankly a bit nervous.

“You were right when you said that your life would’ve been easier had we all taken the burden of caring for those affected by the particle accelerator explosion,” she conceded with a nod. “Working for a noble cause would’ve helped me heal, I know that. I _ knew _ that back then, but I chose to wallow in my misery instead. But what’s my excuse _ now _ ? I don’t have any. It’s a bit early to say that we’re going to make enough profits to all be comfortable by the end of the year, but Cisco landed the contract with XG, and we’re already getting calls about other contracts. We _ made it _, Barry. Our efforts paid off.”

She smiled and walked closer to his bed, her eyes glowing silver-blue as she waved her hand, an icicle materializing from her palm.

“So now that our lives as _ regular humans _ is shaping up nicely, how about we give the military a run for their money as _ meta-humans _?” she proposed with that echoing, chilling voice that bumped up Barry’s already fast heart rate, making his lightning snap at the tip of his fingers.

“General Eiling wanna know what we’re all about? We’ll _ show _ him,” she promised as she tightened her hold on the ice pick, breaking it into pieces.

“I haven’t figured out where he is yet,” Barry admitted apologetically, keeping for himself his excitement at seeing Caitlin use her powers.

Just a few months ago, she’d talked about taking a ‘cure’ to get rid of her powers. This was a pleasant surprise.

“That special forces officer, Eddie Thawne, right? He’s _military_,” she pointed out. “If he hunts down criminal meta-humans, he has to be working with Eiling, officially or behind closed doors.”

It was Barry’s turn to smile. He couldn’t wait to get back at Thawne for earlier.

“Ronnie is okay with that?” he asked Caitlin, a bit skeptical about this perfect proposal. “And Cisco?”

“Damn right, I am okay with that, it was my idea,” Cisco’s voice came as he sauntered into the room, giving Caitlin an appraising look when he noticed her eyes. “I thought that we were waiting to tell him as a team? Ronnie won’t be happy.”

“Couldn’t wait,” she confessed with a nonchalant shrug. “And Ronnie could’ve come with us instead of going back to sleep after hearing that Barry got shot.”

“I think that Barry getting shot didn't register as an emergency in his sleepy mind because Barry is supposed to _dodge_ the bullets,” the engineer pointed out with a dismissive hand. “But it was _different_ this time,” he added with a knowing look at Barry.

The speedster almost gasped as the hurt of getting shot by _Iris_ returned with a vengeance.

“Say it,” he encouraged Cisco. “Tell me ‘I told you so’.”

“As long as you let me knock her out the next time she tries to shoot me I’m good man,” his friend assured him. 

Barry didn’t want to make any promises. Even after what had happened, he still wanted Iris. After all, how many cops could claim to successfully shooting The Flash and living to tell it, not just once, but _twice_ now? 

She was dangerous, and he _ liked _ that. He was going to like showing her just how dangerous _ he _ was even better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated! If you've left comments here or on my other fics, THANK YOU SO MUCH. I'm in the process of replying to them all, I just had to post this first.
> 
> Barry didn't sound as dark as I planned in this chapter, but it was hard to pull off in scenes where he's with his friends. Please believe me that the fic will earn that "Dark Barry Allen" tag, sooner or later.


	4. A Man On A Mission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Iris betrayed Barry...Not really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: plot twist ahead.
> 
> Chapter title from "Ready, Aim, Fire" by Imagine Dragons.

**2014**

District four was a rough one. Even with her gun and her training, Iris didn’t feel completely confident walking the deserted streets leading to the Spruce bridge underpass.

She hadn’t spotted any functional surveillance camera anywhere. What were the tech staff members at the district four precinct paid for?

Iris checked for the third time that she wasn’t being followed _ on the ground _ —there were two conspicuously abandoned buildings that provided a good vantage point on her from _ above _—then hid herself behind a pier.

Five minutes later, she released the safety of her gun as she heard a couple pairs of footsteps getting closer to her.

_ It’s unlikely that The Flash will let me shoot him a second time _, she drawled internally before emerging from behind the stone structure to point her gun at the newly arrived group.

“Oh my god,” a blonde woman exclaimed shakily as she automatically put her hands up.

The blonde man next to her simply rolled his eyes.

“I said that you wouldn’t need your gun,” he reminded Sergeant West.

“Thawne?” she said, shocked by the identity of the anonymous caller.

He was in civvies, and Iris had to admit that the military man could’ve gone for a career in modeling. He was pretty, his sharp features enhanced by the shadows of the poorly lit area.

The woman who hesitantly lowered her arms wasn’t bad-looking herself. Iris had seen her face before. Wasn’t she one of the Special Forces scientists?

“Who did you think I was? _ Barry Allen _?” the major asked knowingly as he waved a hand at his partner, and she rushed to open her messenger bag and retrieve a tablet that she passed onto Thawne.

“Why are you here? Why did you get _ me _here?” the sergeant asked as she strapped her gun under her jacket, feeling foolish for being disappointed that it was not in fact Barry Allen who had asked to meet with her.

“First, I want to confirm: who is that man?” Thawne deflected as he swiped across the screen of the device.

He passed her the tablet, and Iris squinted at the grainy video playing. Was that from a CCTV feed?

It was a stout man in denim walking towards what looked like a rundown strip club. Iris was about to say that she couldn’t tell who the man was from the back when he picked up his phone and turned around, facing the camera for a second.

Doug Johnson. 

“That’s Sergeant Johnson,” she answered quietly as she stared at the video. 

The police officer stayed on the phone as he entered the club, and Iris swallowed her disappointment at the _ married _ man. No need to think ill of the dead.

“When was that?” she asked Thawne as she returned the tablet.

“August seventeenth of this year,” the SFO answered calmly.

The sergeant gasped.

That was a mere month ago, on the same week that Johnson had been murdered by The Flash!

“Why isn’t this video part of the evidence we have against Allen for Johnson’s murder?” she questioned with narrowed eyes.

“Because Spivot right here just retrieved it, it had been erased,” the military man informed her. “Possibly by the same person who hacked into your security system today to free The Flash.”

“CCTV recordings have a whole chain of backup databases,” Iris pointed out. “Why would The Flash bother erasing this one video from all of them if he was just going to admit to murdering Johnson?”

And was that club in district four? Barry Allen had claimed that’s where he’d murdered Johnson, Collins and Larson.

“I lock up meta-human criminals, I don’t bother understanding them,” Thawne commented with a shrug.

“If we don’t figure out motives, we can’t build profiles, and without profiles we can’t anticipate how to catch those criminals,” the cop pointed out, surprised. “You’re the one who asked me to write a _ behavioral analysis _ of Barry Allen.”

“I was testing you,” the military man confessed.

“Testing me? Why the heck would you do that?” the sergeant questioned, feeling insulted.

Major Thawne gazed at her for a few tense seconds before he quietly shook his head.

“You really don’t realize what you are, do you?” he asked rhetorically.

“And _ what _ am I?” she asked back.

“My only _ fresh lead _ to that freak," the military man claimed. "I looked into Barry Allen, and he hasn't been seen or heard of in Central City for over _ two years _…Gone in the wind, like a ghost. His last documented activity was actually a job application to be a forensic scientist at your precinct, in 2011."

What?

"Barry wanted to work for CCPD?" She dumbly reiterated.

"It's suspicious that he got rejected for the role," Spivot commented. "His resume was way better than mine when I got accepted in a much more competitive environment…"

"Are you saying that The Flash has been killing cops just for _ petty revenge _ ?" The sergeant questioned. "No, I can't believe it. I might not be specifically trained in behavioral analysis, but I paid attention in my criminal psychology classes. Barry Allen would've mentioned his job application if it truly was his reason for murdering my colleagues. Heck, he would've killed someone from the hiring committee, not _ five _ field officers! And why delete this footage of Johnson? Things don't add—"

Iris clicked her mouth shut when she realized that the two SFOs were staring at her.

"Wow, you're _ good _," Spivot complimented. "Why aren't you a detective?"

"Umm," the police officers reacted shyly. "That used to be my aspiration, but I feel that I would be more useful as SWAT."

"You're tiny," Major Thawne tactlessly pointed out.

"Thanks for the helpful observation, I hadn't noticed," the sergeant drawled.

"Well, if you help us catch The Flash, I'll put in a good word for you, increase your chances of being accepted into SWAT," the soldier promised. "Because that's what I got you here for. To help me catch The Flash."

"How?" Iris asked, skeptical. "He's too fast."

"Using a time-tested method," Thawne proposed. "We'll set up a _ trap _."

"Bellows is in Barry Allen's pocket, though," the sergeant reminded the major. “How do we make sure that the mayor doesn’t help him walk away just like he did today?”

“We’re not going to arrest him like you did today,” the SFO specified. “The second he’s neutralized and meta-cuffed, I’ll get him shipped to a secure facility—”

“Hold up,” Iris requested with a raised hand. “You expect me to help you with an _ illegal _ arrest of the meta-human criminals that has the most visibility on local media? Are you _ insane _?”

“_ You’d _ be insane not to jump on this opportunity to make a name for yourself, West,” Major Thawne countered. “I’m sure that you’re tired of being in your father’s shadow. All your hard work at the academy then with the contraband squad in district five, only to be undermined because half of your colleagues believe that you got in through your relation to the captain.”

“And _ how _ would you be able to help me get out of my father’s shadow if my contribution to your operation is unofficial, huh?” the sergeant questioned. “You’re making it sound like sending Barry Allen to Area 51 would benefit _ my _ career, but I’m not _ stupid _ . It would only benefit _ yours _.”

“Area 51 is a USAF facility,” Spivot pointed out. “We’re the _ Army _.”

“Like I care!” Iris talked back. “No, I want Barry Allen to be _ tried and convicted _ for his crimes. He killed _ my _ people, not yours. I’ll get justice for Johnson’s widow. Doug was the only one who cared about me at the precinct. If I don’t make it into SWAT I was hoping to get partnered with him as a detective, have him show me the ropes, learn more about district seven…But Barry Allen took that _ hope _ away from me. I’ll make him pay for it, the _ right _ way!”

“The right way?” Thawne repeated with a scoff. “You said it yourself, your mayor is in that freak’s pocket…”

“Will you people _ stop _ calling meta-humans ‘freaks’?” the cop snapped. “They’re not freaks. They’re human beings like you and I—”

“The hell they are!” the soldier talked back. “Did you miss the part where they do things that break the laws of nature?”

“Actually,” Spivot chimed in enthusiastically, “they still _ do _ respect the laws of _ physics_, just at uncommon rates. The meta-gene that gives them powers is actually a whole set of cell-specific genes that are activated at a rate ‘beyond’ what is expected for us humans, hence the use of the prefix ‘meta’ which can be translated as ‘beyond’ from Greek. People like The Flash are still Homo sapiens like…”

“_Spivot_,” Thawne chided with a glare on the nerdy tech. “When I’ll need your input, I’ll _ ask _for it.” 

“Sorry,” the blonde woman apologized sheepishly. “But General Eiling is adamant on keeping all the facts straight.”

_Who’s General Eiling?_ Iris immediately questioned internally, rather than out loud.

A general, a _ war _ leader. Call her crazy, but Iris was starting to think that Barry Allen wasn’t completely bonkers after all.

**Five days later**

“This is your last chance to prove yourself,” Eddie reminded the freak.

Well, he reminded _ Sergeant Iris West_, who looked so off being fidgety holding a gun.

“You’ll tell the general that I helped, right?” the meta-human asked for the third time in the past hour as they fixed the skirt barely covering West's smooth thighs. “I don’t want to go back to the laboratory. I’ll do everything you ask for!”

“How about you start sounding less nervous?” Thawne suggested. “West doesn’t squeak like that. And do you need another reminder on how to use a damn Glock?”

“No, no, I got it,” the freak reassured, clearing their throat before speaking again, much more believable. “You can count on me, Major Thawne.”

Oh, how Eddie wished that the real Iris West had told him those exact words almost a week ago.

The sergeant had a lot of potential, but was stubborn as a mule. That holier than thou attitude would get her in trouble, if not killed, very quickly.

After all, she was about to become an unwilling participant of this war. She hadn’t left Eddie a choice.

It was too bad that Spivot was at the lab, because she knew how to calibrate the listening device in a way that didn’t make it catch interference or junk signals. As it was, Eiling had needed her skills back at HQ so Eddie had to content himself with the average work of his tactical team.

At least they were all equipped to face The Flash: heavy gear, next-gen stun guns that Palmer had guaranteed would disrupt any meta-human’s powers for a solid ten minutes—but that was possibly going to be less time than that with the Dark Speedster—power-dampening collars, meta-cuffs, _ real _ guns (non lethal to The Flash, but seeing him shot for once would be deeply satisfying).

The meta-human impersonating Iris West was a bit awkward as they made their way into that infamous strip club in district four, but they warmed up considerably as they charmed their way up to the owner of the shady establishment, who was present as Thawne's intel had informed him.

A little expected panic at the mention of The Flash, but the club owner took the burner phone, promising to let the speedster know that it was from Iris West.

Eddie could barely contain his smile when the phone rang the next day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!


	5. I Was Never Welcome Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris being a BAMF cop, and another time skip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dark!Barry next chapter, I promise!
> 
> Chapter title also from "Ready, Aim, Fire" by Imagine Dragon.

**2014**

Iris had accepted to go on a date with Scott Evans, Chief Editor of Central City Public News, just to please her parents.

It was disconcerting to have Joe and Francine West gang up on you, to say the least. Anyone would give into the pressure of ‘getting out there’ if it was made by a cop _and_ a district attorney.

Granted, the whole experience ended up being nice. Evans was a perfect gentleman when he wasn’t trying to get a story out of her.

But Iris didn’t have time for a relationship. Plus, she wasn’t gullible: she knew that the journalist hoped to get a confirmation about the rumor that CCPD had momentarily kept The Flash in custody. 

(Iris would bet her badge that Mendez was the one who'd leaked the info).

The irises Scott had gifted her that evening had been pretty, but so cheesy. Iris had accepted the flowers with a smile anyways.

They were a welcome dash of color in the lower level filing room at the precinct, where Sergeant West was spending a lot of time since that night at the Spruce Bridge.

(Yes, the flowers deserved to get sunshine from her living room, but Iris wasn't going to have them at her place just so they could remind her that she should be spending her free time having a social life instead of doing more Barry Allen-related research on her laptop.)

Finding the name and address of that strip club had taken forever—okay, it had taken a _ week _, but that was too long when you were trying to catch a speedster—and once she’d identified it, Iris had been hesitant about going there.

Did she truly want to know what Doug had been doing in district four a few days before his gruesome death? She wanted to get justice for her fallen fellow officer, not to find _ dirt _ on him.

But she also had to find a _ true _ fresh lead on Barry Allen. As Eddie Thawne had told her, the guy had been a ghost since that job application in 2011.

What the SFO had suspiciously omitted was that Barry’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Allen, had passed away shortly after Barry had started college.

Iris had locked herself in the ladies’ bathroom during lunch to cry over the news, devastated for then eighteen-year-old Barry.

How had she not known? How come her father—Captain West hadn’t thought of telling her when he’d learned that The Flash was Barry Allen?

And how had Barry afforded college? His parents’ life insurance? A generous relative? Maybe he’d received a full scholarship since he’d been a 4.0 student even after high school.

Now the sergeant didn’t find it as difficult for her to picture sweet, awkward Barry Allen turning into a murderer. Such a heavy loss had the potential to _ change _ people.

It was too bad that Barry had studied in Star City, otherwise Iris could have interviewed his professors or fellow alumni, to check if they’d noticed a change in his behavior over the years. Maybe some of them would have time for a quick phone call, but then it would be harder to hide the reason for her questioning, so she decided to keep that as a backup plan in case no other lead panned out.

While he’d attended college and grad school in another state, Barry had interned at S.T.A.R. Labs in Central City for three consecutive summers. The famous biotech company had closed after the death of its founders: Dr. Tess Morgan and Dr. Harrison Wells had perished in a car accident in 2010, leaving their daughter Jesse Wells orphan and the sole heir to their fortune. Jesse had been attending school in Switzerland when her parents died, and had returned there after their funerals.

It might take some time and a lot of stealth, but Iris had two possible leads through S.T.A.R. Labs: She might get in touch with Jesse Wells through none other than Wally West, her brother, who had studied in the same middle school in Switzerland—not much of a coincidence, it was the only American-run STEM institution in Geneva—and he must have known about her since they both had family in Central City. Hopefully they were contacts on social media.

The problem was that Wally and Joe were thick as thieves: they facetimed at least three times a week. So Iris had to find some clever way to bribe Wally without him realizing that he was being bribed, and to have him tell her everything he knew about Jesse Wells without raising his suspicions, otherwise he’d go tell on her to their father.

The other S.T.A.R. Labs lead was Francisco Ramon, CEO of Ramon Industries. Mr. Ramon had been a long-term full-time employee of S.T.A.R. Labs, joining through his professional school at the age of sixteen.

Chances were high that he’d met Barry Allen.

Mr. Ramon was ignoring all calls from the police or redirecting them to his lawyers, so again Iris would have to be creative in contacting him without raising any alarm.

Compared the S.T.A.R. Labs leads, the strip club lead sounded like a walk in the park. Shady establishments like The Hedonist were discreet and great sources of intel. The sergeant was sure that more than one person had known that Doug was a cop, if not before then after they'd heard the news of his death.

So Iris pulled out her raunchiest outfit from college—grateful for the chilly fall night because she couldn’t have concealed her gun and modified taser without her faux leather jacket—and headed to The Hedonist on Friday night.

She frowned at the neon sign once she got there: some letters had lost their lighting, so it read ‘Hedon,’ which was a much more respectable night club downtown Central City.

Not even half an hour in the place and the cop felt that something was off.

She wasn't the only female patron there, and had made sure to tip one of the dancers moving sinuously inside her glass cabin—which didn't feel like a sufficient barrier between the performer and the customers, the boldest amongst them rubbing their aroused bodies against the transparent walls—yet she felt several eyes watching her rather than the half naked strippers.

Iris headed towards the bar, using her zigzagging movements amongst the crowd to look around, and she spotted a bald man—cancer survivor or gang member? He didn't have eyebrows either—looking straight at her by the time she found a free high chair.

"You've got some nerves coming back here, bitch," was the bartender's first words to her.

"This is my first time in this shithole," Iris replied as casually as she could, even managing a snort. "I'm afraid to even taste your alcohol…"

She felt men surrounding her before she even saw them.

The bald man, and two others with normal pelosity but built like antique wardrobes.

They wanted to intimidate her, and to be honest Iris _ was _ intimidated, mostly because they seemed to know her but she had no idea who they were.

"I know that I look amazing, but I'm not one of your dancers, boys," she tried to play off the unsolicited attention, but one of the wardrobes pulled her at the elbow and made her stumble from her high chair.

"Hey, easy!" She finally let herself panic a bit as she was led away from the crowd.

She'd brought her badge, but considering that she wasn't on an official investigation, she'd rather not count on it to get her out of trouble, especially since she was in the wrong district.

"I'm a customer, what the fuck!" She whined as she got dragged out to a back room—not a back entrance, which would've been better to make an escape—and two more guys looking like they should be helping her rather than harassing her joined the group.

"I notified Raffi, he'll be here shortly," one of the new guys told the bald one.

Raffi…as in Rafael Darbinyan, nephew and heir to crime boss Araz Darbinyan?

_ What the hell were you doing here, Johnson? _ The sergeant wondered internally as she decided to drop the outraged customer act.

She twisted out of Wardrobe #1's grip and stomped one of her five inches heels into his nice dress shoes.

Just as the big guy yelped in pain, Iris kicked one of the new security guys between the legs, shoving his doubled over body towards the bald guy. He went down too easily if Iris had had the luxury to think about it. As it was, the two other thugs had caught on what was happening.

Not that it would change the outcome of this unexpected incident: when wardrobe #2 grabbed Iris' middle from the back with one of his thick arms, she simply braced against his hold and lifted herself off the floor to drop kick the guy who'd announced Darbinyan's arrival.

The impact of her feet against the thug's chest allowed her to spin in Wardrobe #2's arm, and she didn't care that she flashed him her underwear when she flipped over his shoulder, landing behind him on wobbling feet because those heels were cute but terrible for balance. She shoved her foot on the back of Wardrobe #2's knee, taking advantage of his slow collapse to the floor to grab her gun, aiming it at messenger guy who was just standing back up.

"All of you keep your hands where I can see them," she ordered them just as she realized that one of them was out of her sight: the bald guy.

She shuffled to the side to look around, her gun steadily trained on the four thugs.

A weird urge to clear her throat came to her as she repositioned herself and pointed her gun at messenger guy specifically.

"What's Raffi…Darbinyan—what's his relation with," she tried to ask between random coughs that itched her throat.

She held her breath as soon as she noticed a green gas floating around her. 

It was not diffusing across the room, but forming a thick cloud around her only.

As if the gas was _ sentient _ and was _ targeting _ her.

Bald guy was a meta, wasn't he? That was just her luck.

It took a second to the cop to remember that her gun wasn't the only weapon she'd brought with her.

* * *

_ "A taser?" Iris wondered as she peered at the object Patty Spivot had just handed her. _

_ "I designed it myself!" the scientist informed her proudly. "I'm not a soldier, so that's my defense weapon against hostile meta-humans. It releases a current that disrupts meta-gene expression, so it represses powers for about half an hour. That's more than enough to arrest a meta-human criminal. I've used it on a shape-shifter, a guy who can take anyone's appearance. He impersonated Eddie…Ah, you don't need to know that." _

_ "Right," Iris reacted mildly as she pressed the single button on the cylindrical base of the taser._

_ The snap of electricity was quite satisfying. _

_ "I'm heading back to HQ," Spivot told her. "If Eddie can't convince you to help him stop The Flash, I think that it's fair that you should stop him _yourself_ . As you said last night, The Flash killed your colleagues, so you have all the rights to get credit for his arrest. Maybe you'll get recommended for SWAT if you manage to knock him down a second time." _

_ "Aren't you going against orders or protocols by giving me this?" The sergeant asked skeptically. _

_ "It's my taser," the blonde woman pointed out with a shrug. "Eddie and the rest of the team refuse to use it because it doesn't look intimidating enough, or maybe because it requires close contact, their excuse varies every time I ask. They're all waiting on Sydney Palmer's new stun guns that have the same effect as this. Soldiers and their toys!" _

_ "We cops aren't much different," Iris admitted with a smirk as she pocketed the taser. "But we're not as rich as you guys, so we can't afford many of those new stun guns. Thank you for this." _

_ "If this does help you arrest The Flash, I only ask that you mention _ my name _ to Sydney Palmer when he calls you to propose some shameless promo gig of his tech." _

_ "I sense a story there," the cop commented, amused by the grimace that the blonde woman made when she said the other scientist's name. _

_ "Not worth mentioning," Spivot assured her with a dismissive wave of her hand. _

* * *

Iris clicked back the safety of her gun with one hand and whipped out the taser with the other, her chest heating up as her blood was running out of oxygen.

That snap of the taser's electric charge was quite satisfying, but not as satisfying as the grunt of the hairless man when he materialized back from his gaseous form.

His drop to the floor startled the other men in the room just as Iris took the most precious breath she's ever had, which allowed her to quickly put the taser away and aim her gun back towards the group of thugs.

"Shit," messenger guy cursed under his breath.

"So that's why The Flash flipped when the boss said her name," one of the wardrobe guys told the other, and Iris could care less that the sentence didn't make sense to her.

What she cared about was getting out of this strip club with a meta-human criminal to lock up, which gave her an excuse to be here in an official capacity.

She didn't have meta-cuffs, but there was no need thanks to Spivot's gadget. She did need regular cuffs though, but something told her that one of Darbinyan's henchmen had a pair on him.

"Police," she announced, smiling widely at the men's shock when she showed her badge.

* * *

**2016**

"Is there a reason why Iris West sent me pictures of Silvertongue's ledger?" Cisco asked flippantly as a form of greeting when Barry walked into the secret break room at R.I.

Caitlin, Ronnie and Mina looked at the speedster expectantly from their lunch.

"To make my life difficult, of course," Barry deadpanned as he walked towards the pantry, frowning at the pile of energy bars waiting for him.

If the night had gone as he'd dreamed countless times before, he could've been having a legitimate meal, maybe brunch with Iris...In bed.

"Uh-oh," Cisco reacted upon hearing Barry's long sigh. "For a moment I thought that you were late because you and Sergeant West...You know? But you'd definitely look happier if things had gone well. Not with the mission, you did perfectly, obviously, but you two?"

"Let's not talk about Iris, please," the speedster begged weakly before stuffing his mouth with the sickly sweet bars.

"That bad?" Ronnie teased him, earning a sour glare from the meta team leader.

What did the structural engineer know of his struggles, huh? He had his dream job and had married the love of his life. Barry couldn't even manage to steal a kiss from a drunk Iris, and he was working for free for a job he'd decided wasn't as fulfilling as he'd hoped when he'd completed his third internship at S.T.A.R. Labs.

He'd wanted to help people with his work, to help the police get justice for victims of heinous crimes. Instead he'd become a heinous criminal himself.

That was quite alright, Barry didn't regret any of his actions for the past two years. He'd done what he had to do because no one else had wanted to step up to the plate. 

And had he not helped protect Central City last year, Iris wouldn't be willing to work with him like she'd done last night. Had Barry become a forensics scientist, he would've never been in the field with her like that.

Now, if he could land a proper date, that would be nice. 

_In your dreams, Allen,_ he thought ruefully, his internal voice sounding a lot like Iris'.

"Guys, big news!" Mina announced excitedly before sending a file to their group chat.

_A mask of gold hides all deformity, which is why I'm the handsome king of hell and you're the ugly souls wandering around it aimlessly. But seize this golden opportunity, and you might just get a glimpse of heaven._

A riddle on the virtual criminal message board. Multiple references of _gold_.

"Goldface is throwing his annual masked ball!" Cisco exclaimed happily. "Talk about perfect timing! All his business partners will attend, for sure."

"Smells like a trap," Barry thought out loud. "He's trying to lure me into his...gilded cage," he couldn't help the pun.

"Since when do you turn down a chance to run into a trap?" Caitlin challenged him with a raised eyebrow.

"Exactly," he replied with a smug smile.

"You guys are aware that it's an event for couples only, right?" Mina reminded the group of friends. "I couldn't get in last year when I was trying to get a hold of a drug dealer. I went there with my cousin Jay and they asked us to prove that we were 'soulmates'. Dude is really invested in the tale."

"Barry, please invite your soulmate," Cisco lamented with a long sigh. "It's bad enough that I can't bring _mine_. I wish I could just skip to the part where I trust Cynthia with our secret."

"My soulmate?" Barry repeated, confused.

"Iris," Ronnie and Caitlin specified at the same time.

"She's not my soulmate," Barry denied. "The whole idea of a soulmate is dumb."

To be sure, he _was_ going to invite Iris to the ball, but not because of this soulmate thing, and she'd probably laugh to his face if he claimed that it could qualify as their second date—last night at the club _definitely_ counted as their first one. Or was their impromptu meeting at Jitters last year the first date, making the ball the third one?

But since Sergeant West wanted to arrest Goldface even more than The Flash wanted to defeat him, Barry knew that she'd accept the invitation regardless of the excuse he came up with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a good thing that Iris doesn't want to be a detective though, because she missed some important clues! Did you catch them?
> 
> Anyone interested in the masked ball being part of the main story?


	6. Stuck In The Fighting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry visits that friend of a friend, and coincidentally ends up on the same mission as Iris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dark!Barry is here! If he ends up not being dark enough for you, I'm sorry, but this is close to the worst I can do.
> 
> The whole chapter is set in 2015, so yes there is a time skip from the previous chapter **but** it's just four months later and hopefully I did a decent job filling you in on what's happened since then.

**2015**

“What the hell, Flash?” Hartley Rathaway exclaimed after activating the shield around Sydney Palmer’s fancy open office, blocking from view and hearing what every employee around had already witnessed: The Flash threatening their boss.

“You…you know—you know The Flash, babe?” Palmer managed to squeak out, which meant that Barry hadn’t even crushed his windpipes.

Also, _ babe_?

“Are you aware that this is the _ wrong _ twin?” the speedster flippantly asked Rathaway as he tossed the tech businessman back into his plush armchair.

“Wait, what?” the billionaire asked after coughing and clearing his throat.

“Don’t mind him, handsome,” the son of another billionaire replied with a dismissive flap of his hand.

“‘Don’t mind him’? He tried to _ kill me _!” Palmer shouted as he pointed a finger at the speedster. “He just waltzed in here, and—”

Barry used his speed to knock the entrepreneur unconscious.

“Thanks,” Hartley exhaled as he fixed his earpiece. “This shielding system interferes with my outdated hearing aid, but I had to use it because I couldn’t have people catch me on camera talking to _ you._”

“I’m surprised that the _ right _Palmer twin lets you walk around with outdated tech,” Barry commented. 

“Ray could make me something good enough, I just haven’t talked to him in a while. I haven’t been in the same room as him in a whole _ year,_” the Pied Piper confessed. “I’m grateful that he’s keeping my secret, but telling him that I’m a meta was the worst decision I’ve ever made,” the Pied Piper lamented. “He’s obsessed with the idea of having powers. At first I thought that his obsession would work in my favor, but after several months of enduring tests after tests and remaining in the friend zone, I had to give up.”

“So you’re fucking the next best thing,” Barry concluded as he jutted his chin towards the unconscious CEO. “Though I wouldn’t put good and Sydney Palmer in the same sentence. Does his genius brother know that he’s selling those new stun guns with meta-gene disruptive charges on the black market?”

“The hell?” Hartley exclaimed, snapping his head towards his boyfriend only to remember that he was out cold. “Since when?”

“We caught unregistered guns on a patrol two days ago,” the dark speedster informed the sound meta. “Cisco followed the money trail and it led right to Palmer. I came only today because I had to make sure it wasn’t one of his employees trying to make coins off his back or something.”

“There has to be a reasonable explanation to his illegal activity,” Rathaway speculated as he removed his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. “I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out. Syd is too rich already to be doing this for money.”

“You’re the only reason why I haven’t taken down the Palmer family, Hartley,” The Flash reminded him. “Their tech is _ hurting us_—”

“Their tech is _ helping law enforcers _ deal with petty meta-human criminals,” Pied Piper corrected him. “Seriously, Barry, the number of meta-human _ dumbasses _ robbing banks, slaughtering whole gangs or simply getting a high from causing chaos Downtown is ridiculous. Central City would’ve turned into the new Gotham had Ray and Sydney not assisted CCPD. Even now, our hometown is a jungle, way too loud for my sensible ears. Moving to Star City permanently sounds like a good idea.”

“No it _ doesn’t, _” Barry objected. “We need you back home. We’re gearing up to strike back Eiling’s forces. Join us.”

“We? Us?” Hartley repeated. “Don’t tell me that Cisco and Caitlin finally took pity on your deranged soul and…”

The rest of his sentence got lost into the gasp he let out when Barry sped close to him, gripping his arm painfully.

“Cisco and Caitlin are the only reason why I haven’t taken _ you _ down…_Traitor _,” the speedster spoke slowly behind gritted teeth. “I’m giving you a chance to redeem yourself, here. Atone for the truly worst decision you’ve ever made.”

“Providing Ray with the data he needed to make anti-meta tech and help stop lunatics like _ you _ is definitely the best decision I’ve ever made,” Pied Piper countered, his blue eyes sharp with challenge. “I always knew that something was wrong with you, Allen. Too good-looking, too friendly. I warned Cisco against taking your money because I just knew that it would tie him up to you forever. Now he’s joined you on your imaginary holy war when he should invest all his time and energy on becoming a billionaire.”

“Watch your mouth, Rathaway,” The Flash warned as he tightened his grip on the billionaire’s arm even more, making him drop his glasses.

“Or _ what_? You just told me that you won’t take me down because of C-square,” the sound meta-human taunted him despite the obvious pain he was in. “Tell them I said hello, but I’ll stay the hell away from your mad—”

This time Hartley couldn’t finish his sentence because he was too busy screaming in pain, doubling over after Barry had ripped out his hearing aid, bits of blood and tympanic tissue flying off when the speedster tossed the device away.

“How about you visit and tell them _ yourself_, huh?” Barry suggested, aware that Rathaway couldn’t hear him well as he fell on the immaculate tile floor of Palmer’s Tech HQ. “I’m sure that Caitlin can fix your ear in no time. It’s not like you can go to a real hospital anyways, right? And Cisco will make you a better hearing aid. This one is so easy to reach, it’s a safety hazard, really.”

The speedster watched dispassionately as the sound meta writhed on the floor in agony, deciding to be nice and wait until Sydney Palmer regained consciousness before speeding back to Central City.

“Expect a call from Palmer,” he told Cisco when he skidded to a stop in the R.I. CEO’s _enclosed_ office.

“Which one?” the engineer asked absentmindedly—he was actually working on his goggles, tools carelessly spread on his pricey mahogany desk.

Since the company had started making profit at the end of last year, Cisco had gone back to being an inventor on top of being a businessman. He'd spent weeks making the suits for each member of Team Flash. He'd even proposed to make a new suit for Barry in red, but the speedster had pointed out how unpractical such a bright color would be.

Team Flash had actually expanded, though most of the non-founding members weren't vigilantes: Isabel 'Izzy' Bowin, who manipulated sound waves, volunteered at the only women and youth center that admitted meta-humans (in a segregated area, which was still unacceptable. Barry was thinking of making the mayor build a support center exclusively for meta-humans); Shawna Baez, who could teleport anywhere she could see, kept an eye on the petty meta-human criminals that the Team had stopped before the police intervened; Danton Black, who could clone himself at will, had turned his research lab into a clinic, only accessible to the meta-humans who received access codes after contacting the number on inconspicuous flyers posted throughout the city. Mina Chaytan, a cultural anthropology professor at CCU, led anonymous support groups on weeknights, open to anyone who was a meta or had loved ones who were metas. Barry was expecting Melinda Johnson to join them after she returned from visiting her family in Metropolis—when was she going to get her maiden name back?

The speedster was very satisfied with the work they were doing, and mildly resented his friends for not helping him sooner. This was exactly what he'd had in mind when he'd decided to become The Flash.

There was still no sign of Eiling, and Barry had gone out of his way to avoid Iris ever since he'd heard about her arresting Kyle Nimbus, a hitman Barry hadn't been able to convince that he was better off sticking with other metas than staying loyal to the Darbinyan crime family.

Cisco had been the one, a week ago, to inform the speedster that Sergeant West was now a member of the SWAT team. Barry knew that it was only a question of time before they faced each other again.

"Barry? Which Palmer?" Cisco's question brought him back to the present.

“The only one your best frenemy managed to fuck,” he answered cryptically before phasing out of the room.

Mina was waiting for him in his office, frowning down at the screen of her cellphone.

“What’s up?” Barry asked after taking off his mask.

“I can’t get in touch with this guy, a friend of my cousin’s who told me that he’d help me get a list of all the major drug dealers in the city,” the professor shared. “Last night he told me that he’d infiltrated some big shot’s network…A guy named ‘brown skin’ or something.”

“Bronzeskin,” The Flash corrected her.

“Yeah, that one,” Mina confirmed.

That drug dealer wasn’t really a big shot, but he was _ the brother of a big shot_, Silvertongue, who himself was the right hand of _ the _ crime boss of Central City: Goldface, aka Keith Kenyon, a former mad scientist who literally made a fortune overnight because he gained the ability to turn everything he touched into gold. His skin could also turn as hard as a gold bar, so he was untouchable in more than the metaphorical sense.

Bronzeskin was rumored not to be very loyal to Goldface, so Barry didn’t think that he could get to Kenyon through this case.

“Sorry Mina, but we try to stay away from cases involving only regular humans,” the speedster reminded her.

“Oh, my cousin’s friend _ is _ a meta,” Mina specified. “He’s a telepath, which must be terrible. My own thoughts disturb me at times, I can't imagine being able to hear other people's”

“Give me his name and phone number, maybe I can locate him,” Barry immediately offered as he logged onto his computer.

“Thank you Barry,” the telekinetic said with a bright smile. “His name is Dominic Lanse. His phone number is…”

* * *

As she followed right behind her team leader, Iris made the silly observation that she was still sweating too much in her tactical gear. She’d thought that it was due to nerves during her first missions but even now that she felt comfortable with her new duties, she was dripping from all the pores of her body.

This was her eleventh mission with SWAT, though Peterson’s team had only made three arrests since she’d joined it. That was partly because most of the assignments they were sent to ended up with them scaring meta-human _ kids and elderly people _ who’d done nothing illegal.

Iris had known that meta-humans faced prejudice on a regular basis, but seeing it for herself and being an accidental participant of the system of oppression was disturbing.

That little girl two assignments ago with the enhanced hearing? She needed to get some hearing device that would help her filter all the hateful words she probably heard about her. At least that older man on Iris’ first mission had warned the team that stress made him disappear right before he went invisible, otherwise he could’ve been declared missing and possibly a fugitive.

_ This _ mission was a legitimate one, at least: a massive drug deal involving Bronzeskin, Silvertongue's brother (what with the stupid names?) and one of Keith Kenyon's underlings.

Bronzeskin was not a meta-human, but he was rumored to be less loyal to Goldface than anyone else of interest in all of Kenyon's entourage, so every police chief wanted him to be brought in alive and amenable for a deal.

As usual, the criminal activity was occurring in an abandoned warehouse in district four, but their precinct was currently understaffed (those guys _ never _ had a full boat) and Iris' team had been the first one to round up for a Plan Green.

"All eyes on," Garcia, the team's tech—coincidentally ranking as Golf—reported as Iris squeezed herself between Hotel and Juliett to look at the screen of the tablet.

Bronzeskin was easily identifiable because he had the flashiest bronze-colored suit on. Iris had no idea who the other guys were, but they looked ready to seal the deal, as a few men were finishing loading vehicles disguised as moving trucks.

A repetitive chiming tone echoed on the team’s com system, and Iris felt her heartbeat spike.

That was the meta-human alert. What a coincidence.

“Can’t tell which one it is, but one of those thugs is confirmed to be a meta,” Garcia quietly reported. “On your signal, Alpha,” he added as he took back all the tablets and shoved them into his backpack, except the one Peterson was still staring at.

“We split in three groups,” the team leader strategized. “Hotel to Lima except India, take the southeast entrance and stop those trucks from leaving the premises; Bravo, you’re with Delta to Golf, you lot apprehend Glitter without harming him; India and Charlie are with me to sweep the entire warehouse and catch the meta. Only the three of us are moving in with stun guns, the rest of you go with rifles. Those dealers are sure to have guns of their own, so if they shoot us with bullets, I want us to shoot them back with bullets. Do not, I repeat _ do not _ stray from your task even if you encounter the meta. Us three will take care of him, just make sure to communicate his appearance and movement, but stick to your assignment. This is district four’s case, don’t fuck it up for the glory of our own. Y’all copy?”

“Negative,” Bravo aka Floy Lawton’s response came out louder than the ‘loud and clear’ the rest of the team chanted while they prepped their weapons.

“What’s the problem, Bravo?” Peterson questioned without looking away from the tablet, keeping an eye on the dealers even as he calibrated his stun gun.

“India’s too green to be sweeping for the meta,” Lawton argued. “I should be the one sweeping with you. That’s why I’m Bravo.”

Iris sighed internally.

She’d thought that things would be different once she joined SWAT, that she’d be recognized for her skills, not accused of being favored because she was the Captain’s daughter. Peterson was known to be a no-nonsense commander, giving credit only when credit was due. The fact that Iris had climbed the ranks from Quebec to India in less than four months under _ his _ supervision should’ve worked in her favor, but as always there were people who couldn’t deal with her being as good if not better than them.

“Grab your rifle, Lawton," Alpha ordered sharply before handing back the tablet to Garcia. "You all have your assignment. Scram on my signal.”

Peterson held his palm open and brought down one finger at a time for the countdown, then held his fist to make sure everyone was paying attention and ready to roll before signaling everyone’s take off.

Though the sweating irked her, Iris had to admit that she _ loved _ the thrill of SWAT field missions: seeing the realization in the criminal’s eyes that they were done for, moving as part of a unit rather than as an individual entity, feeling the reassuring weight of her protective gear and feeling the power of her stun gun vibrate the moment she tapped the safety off… 

The meta alert went off again, twice in a row, making her pause in sync with Alpha and Charlie.

“The hell? Where are these two other metas coming from?” Peterson grumbled even as he signaled the other two cops to spread out. "At least there are three of us for the three of them."

This side of the warehouse had several catwalks and structural pillars that offered ample cover to spy on the open floor several yards ahead. Bravo's group was rounding up the dealers.

As Alpha asked every sub team to report on their status over the coms, Iris used the sight of her gun to get a better look at what was happening on Bravo’s side.

There was a scuffle between the drug dealers themselves, and the cops had to pull two guys from each other since they were throwing punches and fists at each other.

Then the sergeant saw red lightning in her peripheral view.

“Team Leader we’ve got a very bad situation!” she announced right away.

“Everyone standby, wait for—” Peterson started as he frowned at Iris behind his goggles.

“Don’t wait for anything, retreat _now_!” West cut him off, speaking almost too loudly in her com.

"Think you can give us orders now, India?" Lawton talked back on his side before a collective gasp filtered through Iris earpiece.

"Shit! It's The Flash!" Garcia stated the obvious.

(The guy was smart and friendly, and with the exception of the team leader he was the only one with a rank higher than Iris who didn't look down on her, so she appreciated him.)

Through her sight Iris could see the speedster and a woman in an Osage ceremonial garb talk to one of the fighting dealers, a young man who after closer inspection looked totally out of place with his kind smile and passionate hand gestures. 

The three metas looked totally unbothered by the thugs and the police officers surrounding them.

"Their guard is down," Peterson noted from his pillar. "West, do you have a clear shot on the speedster?"

She did, in fact, but… 

"Alpha, we need to evacuate the premises," she insisted, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

Four months ago, she'd learned from Kyle Nimbus—the bald guy who could turn into a toxic gas—that Johnson had been a _ partner _ of Raffi Darbynian, bringing in new women to work as dancers for the club. That was unethical, but hardly illegal since all the women were supposedly consenting adults.

The Darbynian family had denied any association with Nimbus and Johnson and even D.A. Horton couldn't make a case to lock up Raffi or Araz for the assault on Sergeant West.

Johnson's fishy activity at the strip club didn't explain why The Flash would want to kill him, so Iris had asked her father during a family dinner if he'd known about Barry Allen applying for a CSI position at CCPD.

_ "I heard about it months after his application was rejected," _ Joe West had only admitted after Francine had demanded he answer their daughter's question. _ "Back then I think Singh was a member of the hiring committee, but he only went along with everyone else's decision. I mean, the kid seemed a bit too soft for the job…" _

_ "His resumé was perfect for the job," _ Iris had immediately countered, exchanging a long look with her father.

_ "Are you suggesting that Barry Allen is killing my people because we refused to let him be one of us?" _ Captain West had asked, incredulous. _ "That's crazy, Iris." _

_ "Or he's killing anyone of us who threatens meta-humans," _Iris had hypothesized.

That _ had _ to be it. The Flash was a meta, and he'd emphasized the fact that meta-humans had rights too. Iris knew now how many innocent metas had people call the police on them. So maybe Barry Allen wanted to _ protect them all _ from the police, whether or not the metas were actual criminals. It was hardly justice, but it was understandable. His solidarity made sense.

And right now, there were two meta-humans by his side. It would be _ suicidal _ to show any hostility towards them.

"Arresting The Flash could make your _entire career_, West," Peterson whispered. "You have what it takes to make a difference in this age of meta-humans. I _ see you_, kid. You've got the fire, you've got the skills, but they won't be acknowledged until you make it to at least Echo. You'll have to work twice as hard as the average SWAT officer to earn that rank. I've already promoted you too fast according to protocols, but you damn well deserve it."

The team leader couldn't know how much his words meant to Iris, but she'd rather disappoint him today and live another day to earn back his trust, than die today trying to get on Barry Allen's bad side.

Yes, the speedster had spared her life last time and had confessed to being in love with her, but was she going to _trust a cop killer's_ words? Even if she did, there was no guarantee that he would even recognize her under her gear. Their paths hadn't crossed in the past couple of months, so he might not know that she was in SWAT now.

That sounded cowardly, but the sergeant really didn't wish to risk the entire team's safety. Those stun guns were supposed to suppress meta's powers, but Barry Allen had an accelerated metabolism and according to Spivot—whom Iris had seen two days prior at the Grand Hotel where she'd been for another date with Scott. If Spivot was in Central City, chances were high that Major Thawne was on a mission again—the effects might not last long enough for an arrest, or might not work at all on the dark speedster.

A gust of wind brought the sergeant out of her musings and into a real panic, though she remained as physically still as she could even as streaks of red lightning crackled next to her.

"Thought I'd heard a familiar voice," The Flash's vibrating one said cheerfully. "What's the primary SWAT team from the meta-human fighting unit doing here, huh Iris?"

The way he said her name…Even with his modified voice, it made Iris shiver.

"Can't say that I like your new look," he commented with a disapproving once over. "One wouldn't know that you're a woman underneath all that gear. How do you even move with that? It looks heavier than you!"

The speedster was giving his back to Alpha and Charlie, who were still mostly hidden by their pillars.

"It's only twenty pounds total," Iris replied, shrugging her shoulders then bringing her stun gun down not only to imply that she had no intention of shooting him, but also so she could free one hand to discreetly signal Peterson not to engage.

She suppressed a yelp when Barry grabbed her fingers, firmly but not painfully.

"What are you doing?" He asked her without heat, stepping into her personal space. "Signaling your colleagues to shoot me in the back, just like you shot me last time?"

Iris' immediate denial died on her lips when her brain processed the end of his question.

"I shot you right in the chest _the one time_, and that's only because you _ let me_," she reminded him as she pulled her hand out of his grip. 

"What the fuck Iris, you can't even own to your actions?" He countered heatedly. "What, the other cops don't know that you plotted with Thawne to drop me at Eiling's feet? That you sold out to the military?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" The sergeant questioned back. "I'm _ not _ working with Thawne!"

She was so taken aback by Barry Allen's nonsensical accusation that she didn't see Charlie try to shoot him.

Nor did she see the _eagle_ coming, despite its very loud screech when it clawed at her teammate.

From then, it was chaos: the drug dealers started exchanging fire with Bravo's group, Alpha and Charlie took down the odd-looking bird that had dived on Charlie, then Alpha shot the kind-looking dealer when he rushed close along with the Native American woman.

Or at least, he _tried_ to shoot him, but The Flash got the man out of the way then grab Peterson by the throat.

"Order your team to get the fuck out of here if you want to stay alive."

The dark speedster let go of the SWAT commander, who took too long looking around while clearing his throat, clearly trying to figure out if they could still complete the primary mission.

"He's stalling, he doesn't plan on leaving," the kind-looking man told Barry. "He wants to arrest Bronzeskin and at least one of us metas."

No fucking way, a _ mind-reader _?

"Good to know," Flash acknowledged calmly.

Iris glared at the telepath, who turned his gaze towards her in response, so she didn't see _it_ happen. 

She only heard the sickening noise of her leader's heavy body hitting the floor.

"Alpha's down!" Charlie screamed, and Iris heard the rest of the team shout back into her earpiece but she couldn't focus on their words.

She stared at her team leader's unmoving body for what felt like an hour but had to be only half a minute.

"She thinks that this is the second time you kill a colleague who knew her worth," the mind-reader revealed her thoughts to Barry Allen. "She's going to bring you down if it's the last thing she does."

Iris looked up at The Flash, whose face had stopped vibrating.

She felt outraged at the hurt that she saw in his green eyes.

“You've chosen the _ wrong side _ of this war, Iris," he asserted when his eyes regained a cruel glint, "so be ready to lose _more_ people who value you. _I'll_ be the last of them, and _ good luck _ bringing me down."

Iris didn't even think, her hands moved on their own and brought her gun up, aiming right at the speedster's chest.

"Let me shoot you again so I can stop you from spouting nonsense, you psycho," she demanded.

"Not a chance," Allen replied before speeding around the warehouse.

To Iris' horror, the dark speedster rounded up all her teammates and took a rifle from one of them.

"Which of these guys does she like best?" The Flash asked the telepath.

"Garcia," the guy answered without hesitation as he pointed at Golf, and Iris wanted to scream.

This was exactly what she had tried to avoid, and now she was going to have the death of _ two cops _ on her conscience!

"A friend of mine who's a doctor told me that the gun wound you gave me would've scarred," the speedster claimed, his voice vibrating again but taking on a softer tone even as he slid off the gun's safety and poked one of Golf's shaking shoulders with its barrel. "I wouldn't have minded, to be quite honest. I've been fighting for years and haven't anything to show it. Getting a scar from you would—"

"Flash, wait," the mind-reader cut him off urgently, daring to step close to the armed speedster. 

"She doesn't know what you're talking about," the stranger informed Allen as he stared at Iris with wide eyes, a look she knew she mirrored. "She's never shot you with a real gun. She's very confused about your claims that she works with the army. She rejected Eddie Thawne's proposal to set up a trap and lock you up…And she's only heard about a General Eiling in passing from Spivot."

Well, that was one way of clearing up misunderstandings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would sincerely appreciate any feedback on this chapter, I'm very nervous about it.
> 
> Also, was the length of this chapter alright or was it too long? I actually split it, which is why I'm posting it early. Half of chapter 7 is already written, so expect another update this month!
> 
> Thank you for sticking with this fic!


	7. Even If I've Got Three Strikes, I'mma Go For It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry and Iris get answers from Thawne, but also more questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for Dark!Barry though it's not as bad as last chapter.
> 
> Chapter title from "We Own It" by 2 Chainz

**2015**

"Who's Spivot?" The Flash asked as he put the safety back on the rifle and tossed it away, glancing between Iris and Dominic.

Of course Iris remained silent, glaring at him behind her tactical goggles—his hands _ itched _ to remove her entire headgear to at least be able to see her properly!

"Uh, that's the 'nerdy tech’ who works with Thawne," the mind-reader answered carefully, and Barry didn’t even begrudge him his hesitation.

Iris had to be cursing him or threatening him in her head. If she could vow to take down the fastest man alive, intimidating a telepath wouldn’t be a problem.

“The two of them are in town…Possibly staying at the Grand Hotel,” Lanse informed him, taking a tiny step back just as Iris’ grip on her gun tightened.

The SFO was in Central City? Excellent news. 

“You’re all free to leave,” the dark speedster told the rest of the SWAT team with a dismissive hand gesture. “My friend here will know if you even _ think _of trying anything funny,” he reminded the group as two of them crouched next to their leader’s body and lifted it off the floor.

“West, come on,” the Garcia guy whispered, gasping when Barry’s head snapped in his direction. “You said _ all _! She’s one of us!” he defended.

“Get out,” The Flash ordered, making his vocal cords vibrate to a lower pitch.

He also made his eyes glow red for dramatic effect, relishing the panic it incited in the law enforcers. They reluctantly but surely left the premises.

That left Iris _ alone _ with _ three _ meta-humans—was she scared? She only appeared angry.

Hopefully that anger would be redirected towards Blondie, who clearly had played her and Barry both, somehow.

“Grand Hotel, you said?” The Flash asked Dominic.

“Downtown,” he confirmed.

Barry looked at Iris, and once again lamented at how she was too covered. 

_ I don’t have to warn you about the consequences of letting her escape, do I? _ he thought very slowly as he glanced at the mind-reader.

(It was convenient that Barry could simply think too fast when he didn’t want the telepath to read his thoughts.)

“Indeed, you don’t,” Lanse answered out loud with a humorless laugh.

_ I really appreciate your help, Dominic, _ the speedster made sure to add. _ Anything you need after this, you let me or Mina know. I’d be glad to have you as part of the team, even temporarily. _

The man stared at him for a moment, and The Flash was surprisingly relieved that he didn’t have to convince him of the veracity of his words. Most people, metas or not, were unfairly terrified of him so he never even tried bonding with them. Team Flash wouldn’t have expanded without Quantum and Inferno’s interpersonal skills—at least Crystal also scared most people, to Caitlin’s dismay*.

“I know, thank you,” the telepath replied quietly with a nod.

Barry nodded back then turned his gaze back to Iris, who was glancing at the back to the warehouse. Red Earth had finished rounding up the drug dealers and securing Bronzeskin.

Sergeant West was clearly still thinking about completing her team’s assignment of apprehending the drug dealer. Maybe that would work in Barry’s favor.

He’d misjudged her. He had truly believed that she’d sided with Thawne—therefore with Eiling—to catch him. In reality, she’d _ rejected _ Thawne’s proposal to team up.

The speedster remembered how some details of the Iris who'd shot him had felt off: the terrible aim, the weird laugh, the malice in the eyes he loved so much…

He shouldn't have avoided the real Iris all these months. If he'd interacted with her more, he would've eventually figured out that he'd dealt with an imposter.

And now she most definitely resented him for killing her team leader. _ Fuck _. 

This was all that blondie’s fault, and he was going to _ pay _ for this 

“Be right back,” he promised before speeding to the Grand Hotel.

Somehow the receptionist of the high end hotel didn’t know him, but the security officers _ did _, so getting the room numbers of the troop of soldiers took only a couple of minutes.

The first suites the dark speedster checked out were empty, but when he phased through the third one he was pleased to see seventeen soldiers in their training uniforms, all in black with golden ‘army’ lettering. Only one of them was wearing a camouflage jacket, and wasn’t seated on the floor playing the card game the others were engaged in. Instead, he was typing on a laptop while talking on the phone.

“No, don’t tell the general anything yet,” Eddie Thawne told whoever was on the other side of the call as the fingers of his right hand flew across the keyboard of his computer. “We haven’t been able to track the two others, though we saw a man on fire flying on Tuesday…Yeah Spivot got some readings, definitely a meta-human—”

Barry had to give credit where it was due. Despite being completely silent as he entered the room, the major _ sensed _ him behind his back. He abruptly stopped typing and immediately turned around in his direction.

“Meta-human!” he shouted as he dropped his cellphone and reached for the mini stun gun strapped to his thigh.

The Flash slowed down time, and once again had to begrudgingly acknowledge the soldiers’ efficiency: five of the card players in his line of sight already had their fingers reaching for their own mini guns.

The police were a bunch of amateurs next to these men and women.

If he didn’t have a mystery to solve, Barry would gladly snap all of their necks and call back whoever Thawne had been communicating with to ask them to pass on a message to Eiling.

As it was, he wanted to clear the misunderstanding with Iris _ now _, so he only grabbed Blondie by the back of his collar and ran back to the warehouse.

“Tornado forma…tion,” the SFO started loudly then toned it down when he realized that he’d changed location.

Barry hadn’t bothered confiscating his gun, so Thawne held it up when his wristwatch beeped three times (meta-human alert app, another one of Palmer’s Tech gifts to the government), aiming at the first person he saw before he brought his arms down.

“MFU-SWAT…Wait, _ West _? Is that you? What the hell are you doing here?” the soldier interrogated, and The Flash had to resist the urge to speed-trip him as he made his way to the cop.

“That’s my line!” Iris hissed back. “How come the anti-meta special forces are in Central City and my team hasn't heard a word about it?”

“Last time your father shut our operation down, so we’re not taking any risk this time,” the major admitted before pivoting on his heels to aim his gun at Dominic, who startled in panic right before Barry sped forward to shield him.

“It looks like _ tricking me _ into getting shot has given you the illusion that you’re _ actually _ fast enough to use your weapon before I disarm you,” the dark speedster noted with amusement.

He was much less amused a second later when Thawne seized Iris into a choke hold, placing his gun right against the only uncovered area of her neck.

“What the fuck, Thawne!” the cop exclaimed angrily, her struggle distracting Barry.

“From the footage we have of you, speedster, I know that you’re not fast enough to disarm me before I shoot her,” the SFO told Barry, ignoring Iris. “Those electric charges are not lethal, but they hurt _ like hell_. Knocked out cold one of the toughest soldiers I know in an accident at the shooting range. And that was far from point blank range.”

“What’s your angle here?” Barry asked, trying not to let outrage get the best of him.

“I'm simply showing Sergeant West that she’s your _ weakness _” Thawne claim. “So even if you _ kill me_, Flash, which you won't do today, she will know that she can take you down easily. See, even if she decided not to go against you, she'd have no choice—”

The soldier's next words got smacked off his lips when Iris’ helmet collided with the lower part of his face, and Barry slowed down time to admire the way she twisted the guy’s arm, took his gun then shoved his upper body forward and down to have his torso meet the butt of her much bigger weapon.

Fuck, that was _ hot _. Despite her cumbersome gear, Iris moved with confidence.

The speedster returned to normal time to see her send Thawne sprawling across the cement of the warehouse floor.

“How about _ I _ hurt _ you _ with that non-lethal charge if you don’t tell me why this cop killer thought that I work with you and that I shot him with a real gun?” the sergeant asked flippantly as she pointed the soldier’s own gun at him, keeping hers tucked against her side.

“That’s pretty badass,” Dominic whispered behind Barry, who couldn't agree more.

“You don’t know what’s at stake here, West!” the SFO shouted as he sat up on the floor. “You think you got things figured out just because you’ve arrested a few petty meta-humans? You’re just _ one _ cop! We wouldn’t have given you the time of the day if you weren’t the only way to get one of the Godai!”

Go-what, now?

“Before you tell me what Japanese Buddhism has to do with Barry Allen, tell me why he thinks that we work together when I _ explicitly _ refused to partner up with your team!” Iris demanded as she switched her aim from the soldier’s chest to his head.

Thawne pursed his lips but didn’t say a word, making the sergeant growl in frustration before her head snapped up to Dominic, staring at him past Barry’s shoulder.

“You!” she called out authoritatively, “how did he do it?”

Barry appreciated Dominic’s silence even though it was clear that he was significantly intimidated by the tiny but powerful woman, and the speedster gave the telepath an encouraging smile as he tilted his head in Iris' direction. 

Lanse took a step forward and angled his head to have a better look at Thawne (did he need to look at the person’s face to read their thoughts?) then looked back up at Iris.

“Keep asking him questions to prompt the right thoughts,” he advised her.

“Why does Allen think that I shot him with conventional gun?” she proceeded without missing a beat.

Barry couldn’t help but compare her current sharpness to her uncertainty when she had interrogated him last year. Her newfound confidence was a huge turn on.

“Woah!” Lanse exclaimed, shuffling around to stand by Iris’ side and stare down at the soldier with wide eyes. “He coerced a shape-shifter into taking your appearance and set up a trap against Flash,” he shared. “Oh, a shape-shifter is—”

“A meta-human who can take anyone’s appearance,” the cop completed his definition, though she sounded surprised to know it herself.

Barry felt his eyebrows raised underneath his cowl.

The military was using meta-humans to complete their missions to catch _ more meta-humans _?

Eiling was a madman who needed to be put down sooner than later.

"You framed me?" Iris shouted at Thawne. "You made a criminal impersonate a cop? Are you crazy?"

"I'm pragmatic," the blonde man argued. "And don't think that you can threaten me with impunity, West. I didn't use that freak just to ambush The Flash. I had him do a few incriminating things and _ filmed _ him doing them while he looked just like you. So unless I report to my team before the end of the day, Spivot will send those incriminating videos to your father and the FBI."

Before Iris even shouted her frustration, Barry threw the SFO against one of the pillars as brutally as his momentum allowed him.

The noise of the impact wasn't satisfying enough, but the speedster knew that his hands were tied.

"I can find that Spivot," he proposed as he looked back at the cop.

"For heaven's sake, Allen!" she shouted _ at him _ as she pocketed the small gun and stomped towards Thawne who was trying to crawl on the floor.

The soldier had to be just fine if he was able to stay stoic despite the pain he was currently in.

"The bastard broke my spine," he reported through gritted teeth when Iris checked on him (at least she removed her goggles and helmet before doing so, and _ there _ was the most beautiful woman in the world).

"Gotta make you feel more like the snake that you are," Barry joked, earning a glare from the cop.

"Leave Spivot out of this," she ordered him. "She's not a soldier, she's a _ scientist _. A brilliant one, whose only crime is to work for the wrong guy."

"Then how do you propose we stop him from blackmailing you?" The speedster questioned her impatiently.

"We?" She echoed, disbelief widening her eyes, then shifting to Dominic, then to Thawne. "That man is crazy," she declared quietly.

Her statement didn't hurt Barry, per se, but it didn't make him feel great either. 

"You killed six of my fellow officers, one of them _ right in front of me _ not twenty minutes ago, and you expect me to work with you?" She asked him with a slow enunciation, her eyes dark with fury.

"Iris," he exhaled, regret tightening his chest.

He'd thought that she had betrayed him _ first _. He wouldn't have upset her like that if he'd known that she hadn't sided with Thawne!

"Don't you say my name!" She forbade him. "If you truly have whatever twisted feelings you're capable of having towards me, then you'll get this man to a hospital and stay the hell away from me! Or you might as well kill me now because I swear that I will try my damn best to shoot you down for real!"

For the longest second of his life, Barry stared at the only good thing that had happened to him since Harrison and Tess had been taken away from him.

Nothing had gone right since he'd lost the people who had made him experience the warmth of a family again, but seeing Iris West for the first time in seven years had brought back memories of better days; memories of having his true family and of thinking that not being able to confess his feelings to the prettiest girl at CC High was the most devastating thing in his life.

And now Iris West, who wouldn't let him work on the AP Chemistry final report alone even though he'd be fine with it, who had smiled good-naturedly at his awkwardness instead of being put off by it, who had been the only high school classmate to invite him into her home…_ That _ Iris West didn't want anything to do with him.

"You got the info Mina was looking for," He flatly asked Dominic without looking away from Iris.

"Yes, we're done here," the telepath confirmed.

Barry nodded and tried not to sigh, failing miserably.

"Bronzeskin is yours, Sergeant West," he declared formally before speeding away with the telepath, texting Mina to instruct her leave the warehouse as soon as the cop received backup.

He wasn't going back to take Thawne to a hospital. The soldier deserved to die slowly.

**Six months Later**

"I don't know how to thank you, General," Eddie said quietly as he looked at himself in the tall mirror, admiring his body.

He hadn't lost a pound of muscle mass. He felt exactly the way he'd been before Flash had broken his spine.

Once the speedster had left, Eddie's adrenaline had gone down and he'd lost consciousness, only to wake up in a hospital bed at Fort CW.

When the nurse on duty had informed his groggy brain that he'd been in a coma for a half a year, the soldier had feared the worst: complete paralysis from the waist down, atrophied upper body muscles, the prospect of a long and torturous rehabilitation regimen and an early retirement with no honors…

But his fear had been unfounded. He'd been able to get off the bed on his own ten minutes later, and to walk to the sitting room where Wade Eiling had been waiting for him.

The major didn't care how the general had managed this miraculous treatment. No doubt a meta-human had been involved. Hopefully the freak was kept in a dark room until his powers were needed.

"Then don't thank me, son," the older soldier replied with a kind smile. "It's the least I could do. Under your leadership this project made more progress in months than it did in two years. You're an unsung hero, Colonel Eddie Thawne. It's regrettable that this country cannot know who they owe their freedom to."

"Colonel?" Eddie repeated, disbelief and elation warring in his heart.

"You deserve it," Eiling assured him with a tap on his shoulder. "The groundwork that you laid down with Spivot allowed us to identify all the Godai while you were resting. With your new rank you won't have to fill up all that pesky paperwork every time you leave the base. Pick someone trustworthy to get it done and just sign at the bottom of the damn forms, it will save us all precious time. Bureaucracy is really the worst part of serving our great nation, don't you think?"

"I certainly won't miss the hours spent at my desk, sir," the newly promoted soldier admitted with a self-deprecating chuckle.

"Now, get ready to pick up where you left, soldier," the general instructed him as he walked towards the door. "This war isn't over yet, and the real one is yet to come. The world needs you to help defend it. Are you ready to answer the call of duty?"

"Sir, yes sir, _ always _," Eddie answered sincerely as he saluted.

Eiling left, and the colonel glanced at his reflection once again.

Incredible, really. Even his beard wasn't that long after all the time he'd spent without proper grooming.

He couldn't wait to see Iris West's reaction to his return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are always welcome!
> 
> * changed the codenames of the other Team Flash members and hopefully you can tell who's who.
> 
> Whatever doesn't make sense in this chapter will do in the next couple of updates.


	8. I'm Not To Be Played With

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris is tired of playing the good cop and being in the dark about what's going on in her city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was time Iris met Cisco, don't you think?
> 
> Chapter title from "We Own It" by 2 Chainz

**2015**

It was the most despicable plan Iris had ever conceived, but she needed _ answers _.

Three days after the Bronzeskin’s case, she waited until most of Eddie Thawne's team had left the hospital during visiting hours to sneak into his private room.

Spivot was there, staring into a styrofoam cup of coffee by the soldier's bed, silent in the midst of the machines' repetitive sounds.

"You have something I want," the cop said as form of greetings, locking the door behind her while aiming the gun she'd confiscated from the injured soldier at the scientist.

For someone who worked with the army, the blonde woman was too easy to intimidate. She almost spilled her coffee as she raised her hands up.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she lied way too obviously, her voice shaky.

"Thawne admitted to using that shapeshifter to frame me," the sergeant prompted her without moving from her spot by the door.

She ostentatiously clicked off the safety on the gun, her sharp gaze never leaving the scientist's fearful one.

"He said that, if something happened to him, you'd leak videos incriminating me," Iris added, struggling to keep her anger in check while she was in the same room as Thawne himself, who was still unconscious (fortunately for him).

"It wasn't personal, Sergeant West," Patty claimed with a steadier voice. "Just a precautionary measure."

"What precautionary measure?" the cop questioned.

"The Flash has killed the last two leaders of this task force," the scientist informed her. "He's too fast to be stopped, so Eddie came up with the idea of using you as a shield. Eddie surmised that The Flash wouldn't hurt him if doing so would ruin your reputation."

The blonde woman glanced at the major before looking back at Iris.

"He was _wrong_," she concluded with a sigh. "All these underhanded schemes and The Flash still sent him to the hospital. I already deleted the videos, on the general's order. Eiling told me that he'd rather have you join us of your own free will…"

"I've been _ suspended _ , so there's no chance of me working with _ anyone _ anytime soon," the cop told the scientist, the bitterness in her voice barely concealed.

After receiving a standing ovation at the district four precinct, the sergeant had reunited with her team, receiving heartfelt hugs from Kurtis Long (Charlie), Garcia and Lora King (Juliett, the only other woman in the primary team) and good-natured pats on the back and shoulders from the other members, even Lawton.

Iris’ return to her own precinct had been less jovial: after taking one last look at Peterson's body at the morgue, Iris had taken a long, scalding shower before starting her report. 

She wasn’t even halfway through her written assignment when Captain West had summoned her and Long in his office to notify them that they were suspended from field missions _and _had to clock in forty hours of therapy before taking the psych eval that would clear them to get back on active duty.

So yes, Iris was _ pissed_. Mostly at Barry Allen for killing her team's alpha, but also at Peterson for not heeding her warning when they still had time to leave that warehouse. And she was mad at herself for not seizing the chance to knock out the dark speedster when she had the chance. He'd been distracted several times during their interaction, and even with the mind-reader present, Iris knew that she could've avenged Peterson's death right there instead of caring for Thawne's survival.

Back to the present moment, the sight of a backpack at Spivot's feet prompted an idea in the cop's head.

"How do I know that you truly have deleted those videos?" She questioned the blonde woman.

"I wouldn't lie about that!" The scientist asserted, having the nerves to look offended.

"Take out your laptop," the cop demanded as she waived the gun in the backpack's direction.

"Everything on my laptop is _ classified _ ," Patty warned as she reluctantly grabbed and opened the bag. "And every file is backed up. My backup files have backup files. There's really no way for me to _ prove _ that I'm telling the truth about the videos…"

"Then I'll settle for some ‘precautionary measure’," Iris decided with a pointed look.

Spivot sighed, but logged onto her laptop all the same.

"What do you want? The personal files of all the members of the task force?" the scientist inquired.

"Every file you have on the Godai," Iris corrected, smiling smugly when her words froze the blonde woman in shock.

"Eddie told you about the Godai?" Patty asked incredulously after a tense moment, her wide eyes alternately gauging the sergeant and the unconscious soldier.

"More like he let the word slip," the cop admitted. "My MMA trainer was an aikidoka with a kenjutsu background*. She frequently referred to the Godai, the five elements in Zen Buddhism. At first I thought that The Flash represented electricity, but that's not right. In Zen Buddhism, the five elements are fire, water, earth, wind and _ void _. A speedster, who has an undeniable freedom of movement, therefore represents the wind."

The sergeant almost chuckled at how Spivot instinctively nodded at her explanation before realizing that she shouldn't confirm anything.

"When the General learns that you know about the Godai, he'll require you to join us," the scientist warned her.

"_ If _ the general learns that I know about the Godai," Iris corrected her with a tiny movement of the gun. "But he _ won't _, will he?"

"You're a _ good _ cop, Sergeant West," the blonde woman pointed out. "Blackmailing is below you!"

"After getting forced into whatever war is going on between the army and The Flash, blackmailing seems like _ not enough _, actually," the cop argued as she fished for her flash drive, then threw it at the scientist.

"Every. Single. File. you have on the Godai, Spivot," she insisted as she adjusted her aim.

Iris wasn't proud of her underhanded move, but when she walked out of the hospital as discreetly as she walked into it, she felt a little less vulnerable in the war she had never volunteered to fight.

**One Week Later**

"You've got some _ nerves _ coming here _ uninvited _, Officer!" Francisco Ramon nearly shouted as he exited the elevator, shooing off the security guards and the receptionist with jerky hand gestures.

Somehow, Iris had expected him to be taller. His baby face didn't indicate that he was past his mid-twenties, not even paired with his expensive-looking, wrinkle-free three-piece suit, and his silky hair tied up in a sleek ponytail.

The cop detected the moment the inventor and businessman noticed the fury emanating from every pore of her skin as she took in the man responsible for the existence of meta-humans in Central City.

The man who had turned Barry Allen into a speedster, into a killer who could escape justice.

The man who had indirectly caused the death of so many police officers.

The man who had indirectly landed Iris on a couch across some phoney shrink who claimed that she had a fear of being abandoned due to her mother leaving her behind to pursue her career in Switzerland.**

The man who had built and activated that so-called 'particle accelerator', which according to the army had released waves upon waves of dark matter, which had caused the mutation in thousands—_ thousands! _—of people on October 13, 2012.

Five of those unfortunate thousands were the Godai, and Eddie Thawne’s task force had identified three of them already: The Flash aka Bartholomew Henry Allen; 

Inferno, an unidentified man who could undergo steady-state combustion and manipulate ambient air density (_ in English _, this meant that his body produced fire and that he could fly) and his elemental opposite, Crystal, an unidentified woman who manipulated heterogeneous nucleation (apparently that was the scientific term for ‘making ice’).

Wind, fire and water. The military still had to detect meta-humans manifesting the elemental powers of earth and void.

None of the files Spivot had transferred to Iris’ flash drive outlined the plan for the Godai. It was all scientific mumbo-jumbo, which had taken a while for Iris to decypher once she’d checked with a programmer that her external drive was not compromised.

(Thank goodness for Linda, Iris’ friend from CC High, who was a sports reporter at CCPN and had a legion of cousins just as smart as her. The Park family alone could build a small nation: they had at least one expert in every industry, and none of them were afraid to sidestep the law to help a friend. Kevin Park was one of Linda’s cousins and a software engineer that Iris knew from college, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit that she used his crush on her to swear him to secrecy about the classified files.)

Maybe the man who had turned his fellow citizens into ‘freaks’ had an idea of what fate awaited the Godai. After all, it was his _failed project_ that had started this war.

“Did you know that _ Barry Allen _ is The Flash?” Iris bluntly questioned the businessman, taking a menacing step towards him. 

She didn’t care about divulging Allen’s secret identity. Who would Ramon tell? He himself had a huge secret to keep, a secret that the military was clearly aware of but hadn’t called him on.

“You knew each other, didn’t you? You worked for S.T.A.R. Labs when he interned there,” the cop recalled as she stopped a couple feet away from the man in the nice suit. “I wonder what he would think if he knew that _ you’re _ responsible for changing his life so fundamentally. For putting him on the radar of dangerous men like General Wade Eiling!”

Mr. Ramon remained quiet as he glared at her, his lips pinched, but he didn’t look too surprised at the information she was throwing at him.

Did it mean that…

“Believe me, I was _ not _ happy when I found out about the particle accelerator explosion,” a too familiar voice said by the door not far from the wide elevator, labelled ‘stairs’.

In hindsight, Iris should’ve suspected that Barry had kept in touch with Ramon. Where else could he have hidden in Central City but in the huge private property where Ramon Industry stood proudly in the gentrified area of _ district four _?

**2016**

“What’s wrong with you today, India?” Lawton asked Iris at the end of the training session. “It’s the first time I’ve seen you needing to shoot a target twice.”

What was wrong, _ first of all_, was that the new team’s Alpha always had her run point during simulations, yet never let her have the prized role during missions. _ Secondly_, Lawton had finally bumped up everyone in the primary MFU-SWAT team by a letter _ except _ Iris (Lawton himself had been the new Alpha since Peterson’s death). Instead, the team leader had bumped Lora King by two letters, and now the former Juliett was Hotel, outranking Iris who’d kept the same rank.

But what really bothered Iris was that, despite taking painkillers, she could still feel her hangover.

And when she closed her eyes, she was getting flashes of what she’d done with Barry last night…Pun not intended, _ at all_. 

Pretending to flirt with Allen in Silvertongue’s club had been necessary to get her hands on the ledger, but almost making out with him _ afterwards_?

_ Almost_. Iris was relieved to know that she hadn’t kissed the guy wanted for killing six cops, one politician and a high-ranked officer of the army. To be quite honest, Iris herself wanted to lock up The Flash for making her feel attracted to him even though she knew exactly who and what he was: definitely not the guy to introduce to her family so her parents could stop nagging her about 'settling'.

Had Barry not passed out in his own bed, Iris knew that she would’ve let him touch her more than he already had. Granted, she had been drunk beyond reason herself, but she wasn’t repulsed by the idea of hooking up with Barry Allen even now that she was _ sober_.

“Everything is fine, Alpha,” the cop lied before leaving the training grounds.

As she took a perfunctory shower, Iris wondered if she just needed to get laid with _someone else_ to get the speedster out of her system. Against all expectations, Scott Evans was still interested in her, as he’d not so subtly hinted at when Iris had last visited Linda at CCPN.

But Iris wasn’t a one night-stand kind of person, and she still didn’t have time to date the journalist. On top of her day job, she was working on a personal vendetta against Goldface.

Detective Singh and a bunch of other cops from different districts were working on the 'cop killer' weapon, but their investigation was slow coming and Iris wasn’t going to wait for her teammates to risk their lives against Goldface or Blacksmith, who were among the few metas who could give The Flash a run for his money—pun intended this time.

If Iris had to get a bit too close to Barry Allen and his own teammates to get the info she needed to keep Central City safe, so be it.

When she finished dressing up, the sergeant noticed that she had a missed call from an anonymous phone number, and an unread text message.

** _Found a way to get in the same room as our mutual friend, but you’re not going to like it._ **

Speaking of the devil.

Iris had told the speedster not to text her on her registered cellphone, but she’d tossed her most recent burner phone after putting the pictures in a flash drive so he got a pass this time.

Whatever was The Flash’s plan, it couldn’t be worse than what they’d done the previous night—please, let Allen be one of those people who forgot their wild nights out after drinking too much!

** _Nothing I do with you is likeable, but it has to be done_**_, _ she texted back as she absentmindedly wished her teammates a great rest of the day—unless there was an emergency, the primary team only showed up for training on Thursdays and Fridays, which was why Iris hadn’t hesitated to drink a lot of liquid courage the night before at the club. The secondary team, Mike to Yankee (Joe West was Zulu, only him and SWAT knew that) were the only ones on duty during those days.

** _Challenge accepted,_ ** Barry replied even before Iris could take her thumb off the ‘send’ key.

The cop let out a short sigh of relief because the speedster hadn’t brought up last night’s affair. Maybe he’d forgotten after all.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was supposed to happen in this chapter, but the mystery of Johnson's death (along with the deaths of the other cops plus McMillan) will be elucidated next chapter.
> 
> * guess who that MMA trainer was?
> 
> ** I got inspired from Leia_Nabberie's fanfic to have Francine move abroad for her work, but in this story she and Joe were still married and Francine only took baby Wally with her, leaving Iris with Joe. Francine returned to CC fairly recently, after Wally turned 18 and refused to go back to the U.S. because his life is in Switzerland now.
> 
> Anyone caught up on Crisis? Did Reverse Flash get a lot of screen time? I hadn't realized that they were releasing parts 4 and 5 at once. I don't have that kind of time, CW!


	9. It's The Life I Chose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris finds out who Johnson really was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long chapter. No time skip this time.  
Warning for mentioned domestic abuse and some type of human trafficking. It really isn't bad at all, just mentioned, but please don't read the first half of Iris' POV (second part of the chapter) if it's going to trigger you.
> 
> The second half of Iris' POV has some WestAllen banter so please don't skip that!
> 
> Last chapter titled from "We Own It" by 2 Chainz.

"Not only did you ruin the lives of thousands of people by turning them into metas, but you're harboring the most wanted criminal in this city," Iris stated as she crossed her arms over her chest, glaring at Cisco. "No wonder you've been avoiding CCPD."

"I'm not the most wanted criminal of Central City," Barry corrected her just as Cisco spoke his punch phrase "We were _ sabotaged_!"

Iris frowned, and held up a finger when the CEO tried to get in another word, the same finger she then pointed at the speedster.

"If that's an attempt at modesty it's done in very poor taste, Allen," she commented darkly.

"I'm serious," he assured her with a shrug of his shoulders. "Goldface, Blacksmith, and even The Trickster are more wanted than me. I don't even have a bounty on my head, _ they _ do."

"Maybe you don’t have a bounty because you have the _ mayor _ in your pocket," the cop hissed. 

"I mean, I'm flattered to be _ your _ most wanted," Barry quipped, ignoring her words, "but the City Council doesn't agree."

He gladly held her flinty stare for a few seconds, then let his eyes slide down her body to inspect the first civilian attire he'd seen her wearing since their reunion last year.

Fitted winter jacket, reinforced vinyl cargo pants and hiker boots. Dark gray, light gray, black. Boringly conservative and functional, though the turtleneck collar of a purple sweater was peaking out of her jacket. In high school, Barry had guessed that purple was Iris' favorite color, and it seemed that it hadn't changed.

"Snart will arrest Kenyon and Black soon enough," the sergeant speculated.

"Oh, you guys still don't know that the king and queen of the black market are _ metas _?" The speedster couldn't help bringing up with a scoff. “Confronting them directly would be a death sentence.”

"Damn it," Iris let out as she dipped her hand in one of her pockets, likely to take out her phone. 

"That piece of information isn't free, by the way," Barry commented cheekily, "it will cost you a favor."

He relished the murderous gaze that Iris directed at him as she mumbled "like hell it will."

It felt good to have her stand so close. He'd checked on her here and there from afar for the past week or so, trying to respect her wish not to see him again.

Well, she'd been the one coming _ to see him_. Or rather, to see Cisco.

Cisco, who seemed to be freaking out, his wide eyes locked on Barry.

That was his 'we've gotta deal with this _ now _' look.

"How about we move this discussion to a more private location, huh?" the CEO suggested with the most fake smile Barry had ever seen on his face.

"This _ isn't _ a discussion," Iris objected with her eyes down on her phone screen, likely texting Snart—Leonard Snart, one of CCPD’s finest, leader of the Contraband Unit. The Flash had allowed him to arrest a few meta-humans because no one on Snart’s list needed Barry's help to survive.

"And I'm not going anywhere private with _ him_," the cop added as she looked up to glare at Barry some more.

"I wasn't actually giving you a _choice,_" Cisco declared as he readied a hand to open a breach.

Normally Barry would ask his friend to watch how he talked to Iris, but since he didn't want her to leave either, he sped her to the secret break room instead of letting the breacher drag her through his portal.

They startled Ronnie and Caitlin, who had been necking each other in the not-so-private space.

"The hell!" Iris and Ronnie swore loudly, whereas Caitlin merely sighed in resignation.

"Really, Barry, _ really_?" She asked but not really as she eyed the cop warily.

The speedster was expecting Iris to whip out a gun, but she merely flexed her fingers and briefly closed her eyes, her chest moving slowly as she took a deep breath.

"Touch me again without my consent and I'll give you a taste of my fist," the cop threatened him.

Barry immediately stared at her lips, which he'd much rather taste instead, and smiled at the sigh of frustration that flew out of them.

"I just want to talk it out before I'm forced to involve my lawyers, here," Cisco announced as he stepped out of his breach. "I could even bring in big guns like Richard Grayson, but I'd rather not have non-locals meddle in my affairs."

"Wait…_You're _ void," was Iris' very subdued and completely unexpected response to the breacher.

The cop was staring at the engineer with wide eyes, then looked around the room.

"Don't tell me that you two are Inferno and Crystal, that would be too insane," she pleaded Ronnie and Caitlin.

"So much for our secret identities," the fire meta responded with a scoff even as the ice meta frowned at the sergeant.

"How do you know that?" Caitlin questioned.

Against all expectations, Iris actually replied as she pulled out a flash drive from her pocket.

"Classified data from the army," she admitted with a tight voice. "Or rather, classified _ intel _ from the army. General Eiling has been monitoring Central City looking for all of you," she added urgently as she glanced furtively at Barry then startled. "Oh, well, I guess that there's still one missing."

"What the hell is happening guys? Why is the security staff so on edge? For a minute I thought that you revoked my clearance…"

It was Mina, and at first Barry thought that Iris flinched upon seeing her because of the Bronzeskin mission.

"Your weird animated animals are made out of _ clay_," the cop recalled, and the professor glanced at the team before answering with a little too much enthusiasm—Barry couldn’t judge. They were all nerds in the team.

"Not just clay, but wood and other mineral composites,," the Native American woman specified. "They all come from the earth itself, which is a powerful vessel used to build a direct connection with the ancestors—"

"From the _ earth _ itself. Great, just _ great_," Iris mumbled as she rubbed the pads of her fingers over her forehead. 

"What is this about?" Caitlin asked her just as tension started settling for real in the room.

"The Godai…" the cop started as she stared at Barry less discreetly, and he nodded when he remembered that Thawne had said that word when referring to him.

"...are the five elemental powers in Japanese Buddhism," she kept going. "I don't know why the hell Eiling is focused on meta-humans who have abilities related to these elemental powers, but he's going as far as using_ other metas _ to make sure that he gets _ you _guys. Eddie Thawne framed me just to be able to catch The Flash. His team has documented Inferno and Crystal's movements as well. I'm part of the meta-human fighting unit, and I only heard _rumors_ about you two!"

"The military is stalking us?" Cisco concluded. "That's…actually not surprising."

Indeed, it wasn't.

Barry had learned the fact months after the particle accelerator explosion, but Cisco had eventually told him that the military had once offered to fund his project. They'd claimed that their interest in the particle accelerator leaned towards clean and efficient energy, but of course the engineer had known better than to trust their words to use it for the greater good.

"You're not thinking what I think you're thinking," Ronnie jumped in, raising a hand to catch everyone's attention. "They wouldn't have sabotaged us…"

"...to turn us into these Godai?" Mina completed the question as she looked around the room with shock.

No wonder she fit right in on the team from the get go. She wasn't only a brilliant scholar, apparently she was a member of this select group of chosen meta-humans.

Barry felt something turn his stomach, and it wasn't indigestion because all he was eating nowadays were the energy bars that Caitlin had made to satisfy his fast metabolism.

No, what was making him so uneasy was the feeling that his life had been manipulated by other people since his job application at CCPD had been rejected.

"How could they know that the explosion would specifically give us powers?" Cisco argued with a shake of his head. "A complete wipe out of the city was more likely to happen than thousands of people ending up with abilities."

"But what if the sabotage _ was _ deliberately made to give people powers?" Iris insisted with a frown before looking around the room of scientists. "How probable would it have been for people in the city to develop powers based on the five elements?"

"Highly probable," Caitlin answered, her wide eyes meeting Barry's. "In fact, despite the fact that dark matter affects each individual's DNA in a unique way, there's bound to be redundancy in the abilities that the meta-gene conveys. We aren't the only candidates to the title of Godai. I could argue that Barry and I don't actually fit the profile. There must be metas whose powers entail the exact manipulation of wind and water."

"The Godai aren't just about the physical nature of the powers," the cop objected. "There's a mental, or rather a spiritual aspect to each element. "

"How would you know that they refer to us, then?" Ronnie objected. "No offense, I'm sure that as a cop you're a good judge of character, but with the exception of Barry we're complete _ strangers _ to you. You don't know that our 'spirits' fit the standard of some old Asian philosophy."

"She already explained why she matches the criteria for 'chi'," Iris claimed with a head movement towards Mina. "It represents stability, collectiveness, the desire to be rooted in tradition."

The cop crossed her arms again as she stared at Ronnie.

"If _ you _ are the right 'ka' then you're outgoing, energetic and borderline forceful," she speculated. "Your loved ones value that forceful streak of yours because it only arises when you're trying to keep them safe."

The sergeant didn't give Ronnie time to do anything but gape at her before she moved onto Caitlin.

"You've got to be some type of biologist because 'sui' is associated with the 'formless' things in the world, from liquids like blood and other bodily fluids to plants to entire ecosystems," the cop said. "You're very resilient but you hate change and react strongly against it even though you thrive in it."

"You're creative, an inventor whose skills defy the already high standards," Iris kept going as she shifted her gaze to Cisco. "Your powers represent things outside of everyday experience, so on top of the whole teleportation thing you're supposed to also have some psychic abilities."

"This is some profiler shit," the engineer objected. "You're a cop specialized in dealing with meta-humans, so I wouldn't be surprised if you came up with that after stalking me somehow."

"I didn't even know that you were the guy who helped The Flash escape," Iris reminded him. "Everything I've said I read it from books about the Godai in the library and from the info on the classified files here," she added as she waved the flash drive in her hand.

"What about me?" Barry heard himself ask.

It couldn't be a coincidence that she'd skipped him.

"It's all in the drive, I added notes," the cop answered without looking at him, carefully placing the storage device on a table.

Then she turned to Cisco.

"You should be ashamed of yourself," she told the CEO. "Sabotaged or not, you're _ responsible _ for all the people whose lives were turned upside down by the explosion of your machine. You should've been the one to help CCPD protect the public from meta-human criminals, not the Palmers. In the drive there's a file with a list of addresses. These places house meta-humans my team has been sent to apprehend, but we didn't arrest any of them because they weren't criminals. A few of them need medical assistance, others just a support group so that they don't feel so alone in a society that condemns them for merely existing. It's _ not _ too late to help them, Mr. Ramon."

It was Barry's turn to gape at Iris.

Ignoring the fact that she didn't know that Cisco had already started helping, she'd just paraphrased what Barry himself had told his friend over two years ago.

"Hello?" Someone called at the door.

The speedster almost cursed when he saw who it was: Melinda Johnson. 

He'd forgotten that she was coming back to Central City today, and was scheduled for a check up with Caitlin because Caitlin loved to poke people with her needles.

"Melinda, hey, welcome back!" Mina greeted the newcomer, giving her a quick hug. "You should've called me, I would've picked you up at the station."

"Melinda?" Iris asked, her voice breaking. 

The Flash resisted dropping his head in his hand.

He'd planned on explaining everything to Iris eventually, ideally over some fancy dinner during one of their dates.

But he doubted that the dates would ever happen, so he might as well let Melinda tell Iris about her dead colleagues.

* * *

"It's good to see you again Iris," Melinda said cautiously after the others had cleared the room, all claiming to have duties to attend (except Barry, but that wasn't Iris' business).

"Though last I heard, you were in the SWAT team specialized in arresting meta-humans?" She added.

"Criminals only, Melinda," the cop rushed to specify."Like the one who killed _ your husband_!"

The two of them were still standing, Iris by the table in the middle of the huge breakroom and Melinda barely a step through the door.

That Mrs. Johnson was a meta-human, the MFU-SWAT officer had no problem with.

But for her to be friendly enough with _ Francisco Ramon _ that she could just waltz into R.I.'s main building like that?

"How is this even happening?" The cop questioned. "The Flash killed your husband in cold blood—" the sergeant tried to remind the banker, but the latter cut her off.

"It wasn't in cold blood, it was to _ protect me_!" the widow half-shouted, shocking the cop.

"Excuse me?" Was Iris' knee-jerk reaction.

Melinda let out a long sigh, then walked further into the room.

"I know that I… I should've explained things to you at the funeral when you offered your ears and shoulders," the widow almost mumbled as she walked to her. "I just…I didn't think that I could trust you with my secret, Iris. I know that you're a good person, unlike Doug and the others…"

"Doug was a good person too," the cop defended. "I know that you must have felt humiliated to learn about Doug doing business at a strip club, Melinda," Iris whispered as she stepped towards the older woman. "But his activity was legal, I checked, though being involved with Rafael Darbinyan was more than unethical—"

One moment Iris felt agitated by the idea of Doug's widow defending Barry Allen, the next she was feeling a deep sense of _ peace and joy _that left her breathless for a second.

Maybe it stemmed from the fact that Melinda looked so much better than the last time Iris had seen her. And when the cop looked down at the older woman's hand holding her wrist, she giggled at how pretty Melinda's nail polish was.

It was purple, Iris' favorite color.

"I feel a bit strange, but in a great way?" Sergeant West said uncertainly between giggles. "What did you do? Oooh, that's weird!" She added, clapping the palm of her free hand to her face, vainly trying to control her smile.

Out of the blue she was standing on the other end of the room, Barry Allen's hands on her shoulders.

His pretty green eyes were looking at her with concern. 

Oh, his eyes were _ so pretty_! Not just his eyes, he was handsome all around, and Iris really wanted to kiss him. If Melinda had forgiven him the murder of her husband, surely Iris could forgive him Peterson's death too, right? Why hold grudges when life was so short?

Just as the cop was about to ask the speedster to kiss her, she realized how _ absurd _ her thought process was.

Her head hurt as she tried to fight the unnatural giddiness that was making her feel so relaxed in the cop killer's hold. It worked.

"Hey, _ hey_, it's okay," Barry spoke softly as he removed his hands from her shoulders when they tensed up, and he slowly stepped away from her, turning slightly to address Melinda. 

"Please don't _ever _do that again," he told her as Iris' belatedly realized that she might have collapsed had the speedster not held onto her. She stared at Melinda from across the room as the last vestige of her stupid smile disappeared.

"I make anyone I touch happy," the older woman explained quietly as she held out her hands. "Normally I can control my powers, but when I'm in an overly emotional state they just ooze out of me and the feelings of peace and happiness linger on the person I touch. If I don't touch anyone when I'm overwhelmed, I just faint."

"At the funeral…?" The cop half-asked, half-recalled.

"I was _ overjoyed_," Melinda admitted with a curt nod and a small smile. "I was finally rid of that _ monster_," she added sharply, making Iris gasp in shock.

"You think that I felt humiliated by the fact that Doug provided dancers to Raffi?" The banker said, her tone getting sharper. "How about I felt humiliated for being used as a human meth syringe? Three days after I told Doug about my powers, he _ sold _ me to Darbinyan. I was one of the women working at that shithole, only I wasn't a dancer. People paid crazy money to have me touch them _ after they abused me _ verbally or physically just so I could make them feel high."

Iris' hand flew to her mouth as she realized that, indeed, she had experienced the symptoms associated with the use of a psychoactive drug. She'd only smoked pot once back in college, and it had felt exactly just like how she'd felt a couple of minutes ago. 

(When her therapist had offered to prescribe her medical doses aka the strongest of all legal types of marijuana to help her cope with her 'current situation', Iris had declined. She hated psychoactive _ anything_. Her parents gave her the side eye every time she mocked their caffeine addiction.)

"I always knew that my husband was a terrible man," the widow admitted. "He was a dirty cop who justified his illegal activities with the story that he was gathering money for Yoyo' trust fund."

Seeing Melinda remain stoic as she disrespected her own husband's memory forced Iris to remain calm herself while her opinion of her departed colleague abruptly changed, right in front of the man who'd _ killed _ him.

Barry was quiet and had his eyes looking at a wall, his expression neutral.

"Doug admired you, you know?" The banker told Sergeant West with a shrug that was way too _ casual _ for what she was sharing with Iris. 

"He would talk about you a lot to our daughter, saying that you're a great role model: first of your class at the academy, picked by the famous Lieutenant Snart after just a few months in circulation, making Sergeant in less than five years…Most importantly, you're a _ good cop_. Behind his words of praise I could hear his envy. They were all jealous of you, deep down."

_ They? _

"Collins and Larson," Iris whispered, her body frozen in a tense stance.

The three cops had been friends, so of course Melinda knew Collins had Larson. 

"And Chyre and Payne," the empath added, "though these two tried to lay low after they got transferred to district seven. But McMillan told me that he had plans for them—"

Melinda looked surprised that _ Iris _ was surprised to hear her drop that name so offhandedly.

The widow frowned at Barry, who was now leaning against the back wall.

"How is she here, yet she doesn't know _ anything_?" she asked the speedster.

The Flash just shrugged.

He shrugged, as if he didn't know that Iris had been dying to know why he'd murdered five cops and one senator last year.

"McMillan was one of my regular…I guess the term is 'clients'," Melinda resumed as she looked back at Iris. "As I said, my 'services' were expensive, so at least I only had to deal with rich men and women. I wish I could say that it was a nice change from my day job...Every time the senator was in town he'd ask for me… "

"Melinda, you don't have to tell me everything, _ please_," Iris assured her as she walked halfway across the room to stand by her again, remembering not to grab her hands at the last second. "I didn't mean for you to relive these terrible memories."

"Without Barry, they wouldn't be just terrible memories," Melinda pointed out as she jerked her chin in the speedster's direction. "They would still be my _ reality_. McMillan was too powerful for me to get away from that life, even if I'd left Doug. Not that I could leave him. All he had to do was oust my secret and I wouldn't be granted custody of my little girl."

Iris gritted her teeth. 

Once upon a time, she would have wept in sympathy for the older woman. She used to hate her tendency to internalize other people's pain.

Her eight weeks of extremely intense training with SWAT had made her skin thicker and her heart colder. 

That hadn't saved her from having to sit in front of Dr. Finkel and 'talk through' her grief for Peterson (though that woman often veered off track to have Iris speak of her childhood). 

The cop couldn't imagine how many hours of therapy Melinda would need to manage the mental scars of her ordeal. More than forty, that was for sure.

"Murder is still a serious crime," the sergeant reminded the banker, who startled. "I'm not saying that I'd arrest you for being friends with The Flash," Iris quickly added. "I just…Please be careful, Melinda."

"I will," the other woman replied with a nod and a small smile before she seemed to remember an important detail and looked back and forth between Iris and Barry.

"I—I wasn't aware that you two knew each other," she commented cautiously. "Personally, I mean. And sorry about using my powers on you like that, Iris. It's hard to explain them without a demonstration."

Was Iris detecting a hint of fear in the older woman's voice?

"No harm done," the cop assured as she glared at Barry. "And no, we don't know each other."

"That's cold, West," the speedster reacted with a huff, effectively lightening up the mood.

"Well, I guess I need to go to the infirmary," Melinda announced as she took careful steps towards the door. "I should get over with Caitlin's battery of tests right away. It was good seeing you again, Iris, take care!" the banker rushed her last words before exiting the break room.

"Caitlin, that's Crystal, right?" The cop absentmindedly asked. "So I was right about her being sui."

"You didn't list _ my _ traits as one of the Godai, by the way," Barry recalled as he leaned away from the wall.

"How do I get out of here? This place is huge," she deflected as she walked towards the exit in turn.

The speedster whooshed ahead of her, blocking the way.

"Alright, we can skip on the Godai thing," he decided, "but I was expecting some follow-up questions after what you've just learned from Melinda."

"Whatever your reason for murdering my colleagues, it doesn't make you less of a killer," Iris bit out. "And _ Peterson _ wasn't a dirty cop."

"I gave him a chance to leave," The Flash defended mildly. "Most of your teammates were armed with real guns—"

"Our team leader _ wasn't_!" Iris pointed out. "You can't claim self-defense!"

"I thought that _ you'd shot me!_" Allen reminded her.

"So you took it out on my mentor?" She countered. "Your problem was with _ me_, you should've left everyone else out of it! You're just coming up with reasons to justify your bloodlust, 'dark speedster'!"

The cop gasped as she was pushed to the wall by the door at super speed, but even with Barry's forearms bracketing her head and his taller frame caging her, she didn't back down.

In fact, after allowing him a few seconds to stare down at her with another kind of lust, the cop had the speedster back away as she attempted to knee him in the guts.

His short laugh made her feel more irritated than she already was by his brazenness. 

"Now, now, I thought you promised me a taste of your fist, not your _knee_," he commented with a wide grin.

Yes, right before he had looked ready to kiss her in front of everyone, and _ why the hell _ was Iris even thinking about that?

"I'm never going to apologize for killing anyone, Iris," he warned her with a tilt of his head. "So if you want to be part of this team, you might as well make peace with—"

"Did Melinda touch you too, are you _ high_?" The cop cut him off. "I'm a cop and you're a criminal. What addled part of your brain conceived the idea of the two of us being on the _ same team_?"

"You came here of your own free will to warn us about Eiling's intentions," Allen argued, as if he had a point to make.

"I came here to let Ramon know that I knew his secret," Iris collected him, "_then _ I took advantage of the fact that you and your friends are the Godai to settle a score against Eiling and his task force. I'm through with this war. I'm a cop, not a soldier."

"Do I look like a soldier to you?" Barry asked rhetorically.

"Your hair is a bit too long but yeah you actually do," she answered. "Arrogant dude who speaks about war all the time and feels unapologetic about killing people? Sounds like a soldier to me!"*

"You don't know half of what these cops did," the speedster argued more seriously, passionately even. "What you told Cisco, about helping meta-humans in need? That's all I've been doing since 2012, _alone_. Do you know how many meta-humans there are in the city you're supposed to protect, _ Sergeant_?"

"Thousands," Iris whispered.

"I've only met one hundred and fifteen metas since I became The Flash," he informed her. "Only twenty of those have accepted my help. Thirty have left Central City. Half of the rest live in this already shitty district."

"District four looks nice from your friend Mr. Ramon's window," the cop commented cynically.

"Cisco could've done more before, that's true," Allen agreed. "He was focused on building his own legacy first. But he's helping now. So are Ronnie, Caitlin and Mina, and Melinda will be helping too."

"Melinda sounded scared of you," Iris couldn't help but bring up.

"They're _all_ scared of me," The Flash admitted with a shrug of his shoulder, though his eyes sparked with something that the police officer identified as longing.

"You're not," Barry Allen added.

"What?"

"_You're_ not scared of me," he reiterated. "Maybe you were scared of my powers that time at the precinct, but you weren't scared of me at the warehouse. I even asked Dominic…"

"The telepath, that's his name?" Iris asked. "Fits him. He's not actually a dealer, is he?"

"He's a high school literature teacher," the speedster answered her with a chuckle. "He used his powers to infiltrate Bronzeskin's ranks. He was trying to stop the distribution of a drug that's become popular among his students."

"CC high?" Iris inquired, suddenly worried.

"North Central Academy, actually," he reassured her. "Those pompous kids who party harder than they study. It couldn't be CC High, _ come on _ Iris, as if Mr. Cooper would ever let an illegal substance make it within a mile radius of campus without raising hell about it. The man made an example of his own daughter when she was caught smoking in the parking lot."

"Oh, the Fall from Grace of Becky Cooper, best quarter of my high school life!" Iris recalled giddily. "I know that I wouldn't have won the homecoming queen election if Becky hadn't been disqualified."

"Please," Allen objected with a knowing look. "Most of us thought that she'd pulled that stunt to raise her popularity, but Ralph told me that she did it on purpose to sabotage her own campaign because it was clear that you would win and she didn't want to lose face."

"Ralph Dibny, the chief editor of the school newsletter?" The cop asked, shocked. "No offense, but…I didn't know that you two were friends back then."

She couldn't help but smile at the genuine laughter that came out of her former classmate.

"Of course we weren't friends back then," he confirmed with a shake of his head. "Ralph's a meta. He's a P.I., and I'm sure that your paths would've crossed if you'd become a detective instead of wearing that atrocious tactical uniform."

And just like that, the magic faded.

Instead of being just Iris West, reminiscing about the good ol' times with a fellow alumnus from CC High, she was Sergeant West from the Metahuman Fighting Unit, Special Weapons and Tactics team. And he was The Flash, the number one criminal on their red list.

"I should go," Iris announced uselessly as she tried walking out the door again.

This time Barry stopped her by grabbing her arm, and this time she wasn't in the mood for a vain attempt to land a hit on him.

"Iris, please, just answer this one question," he requested quietly, so quietly that had he not been in her personal space, she wouldn't have heard him. 

"What?" She allowed in a harsh exhale after she looked back at him, using her sternness to mask how stunned she was by him.

Maybe it was an after effect of Melinda's powers, because usually Iris easily ignored that fact, but Barry Allen was a _ gorgeous man._

She'd put him in the 'cute nerd' category back in high school. It's not that Iris had anything against nerds, but they just weren't her type back then.

Nowadays she found smartness sexy, and she _ still _ felt weak for those green eyes.

Not that she would've dated Barry Allen if he hadn't been a cop-killing meta-human criminal. 

Iris didn't have _ time _ to date. Even with her workload greatly lightened because of her suspension, she hadn't had the time to hang out with Linda more than once for the past ten days.

"Why aren't you scared of me?" Barry Allen whispered, his breath blowing on her forehead as she stared at his right shoulder.

"That atrocious tactical uniform?" She quoted him flippantly, though she spoke as quietly as him. "Only the toughest among us cops wear it. I'm an elite officer who deals with powered people on a regular basis, Allen. Of course I'm not scared of you."

It was only partially true. The only reason why even the mind-reader couldn't have picked up on her fear at the warehouse was because she knew how to shove her thoughts of panic to the background. When she was scared, Iris systematically focused on the actions she could take to get out of a dangerous situation. That's what SWAT had trained her to do.

"Your bigger and more experienced teammates were _ terrified_, I didn't need to ask Dominic to confirm what was obvious to my own eyes," Allen pointed out with a slight frown.

Well, her teammates didn't have her _ subconscious _ conviction that the dark speedster would never physically harm her. A conviction that had been proven _ right _ at the warehouse. Barry had thought that Iris had hurt him after allying herself with his enemy, yet he had only tried to _ mentally _ scar her with the death of her teammates.

"They knew that you could kill them in a fraction of second!" Sergeant West defended her colleagues.

"I could kill _you_ too in a fraction of second," the speedster reminded her.

Iris scoffed.

"You've had plenty of opportunities to kill me and you haven't taken them," she asserted as she drew her arm out of his grip. "Can I go now?"

"You've had plenty of opportunities to shoot me at the warehouse and you didn't take them either," he countered as he sidestepped her to once again stand between her and the door.

Iris blinked.

He'd noticed?

"Don't look surprised," he said after rolling his eyes. "You took down Thawne when I couldn't. I'm actually fast enough to disarm someone from that distance but…I couldn't risk it. I was too distracted."

Iris didn't want to hear why, she _knew_ why, and she didn't want to _care_ about it.

"That was a nice chat, but I have to go," she announced as she made to walk into him, counting on the fact that people instinctively stepped aside in that kind of situation.

The joke was on her, since Barry Allen's instincts were obviously as twisted as his sense of justice. He merely lifted a curious eyebrow at her when she hit her nose on his chest.

"Even I who can phase through solid matter have never tried to just run into someone like that," he said in a mocking tone.

"Shut up," she demanded as she chanced walking around him.

She couldn't keep a growl of frustration from making its way out of her chest when the speedster matched her steps.

"Allen!" She hissed, exasperated.

"One date, and the promise to go on more if you genuinely like it," he declared as he ticked off to fingers from a raised hand. "That's the price of your freedom," he explained when she stared at him blankly.

"Get. Out. Of. My way!" The cop ordered behind gritted teeth.

"Had to try," Barry commented with a shrug before he pulled his cowl back on.

"Can't have anyone see you, so I'm speeding you out of here. Most employees don't even know that this room exists."

"You and your friends are pros at keeping secrets," Iris drawled even as she braced to have him hold her.

"I'm an open book for you, Iris," he replied with a smile. "All you have to do is ask the right questions."

"Can you make this the last time I ever have to suffer your presence?" Sergeant West couldn't help but request.

She heard him chuckle before she felt her feet getting off the ground for a heartbeat, then she was back at the visitors parking lot of Ramon Industries. _Alone_.

Well, there was that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> I swear that I didn't make up anything about the Godai thing. Funny how that worked out for me. You can head to wikipedia if you want to read the whole profile of what the wind is supposed to represent, or you can wait for Iris to acknowledge that Barry actually fits the criteria!
> 
> Now that I've fully established Eiling vs the Godai subplot, I'll try my best to resolve it in the next few chapters because I'm sick of the slow burn myself lol.
> 
> * I'm anti-gun and hate war and any other form of violence, but I mean no offense to anyone in the military. This is just fanfiction.


	10. Wanna Live, Not Just Survive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris loses another colleague, but Barry has nothing to do with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember way back in chapter 1 when Singh mentioned that Iris had been part of Snart's team? Yeah, sorry Len fans.  
Also, WestAllen texting, a first for me I think!
> 
> The titles of chapters 10, 11 and 12 are from the song "Angel With A Shotgun" by The Cab. I highly recommend listening to it, because it really embodies the main plot of the story. The eponymous angel could be a combination of Barry and Iris, but some parts really sound like Eiling or Eddie's POV.

**2011**

Patrol officer Iris West checked herself in the restroom mirror one more time, checking for remnants of her BLT sandwich on her teeth. Clear. 

Hair? The roots were already frizzing up, but she could stretch her straight look for three more days.

Uniform? It would've been perfect for that Halloween frat party Linda had dragged her to a couple of years back, meaning that it was almost too tight of a fit.

Iris usually wore two sizes above hers, but Sergeant Morgan had spilled his wake up coffee all over her regular uniform—and had lectured her for _ his _ trouble—and the station receptionist had insisted that officers could only ask for spare uniforms in the size they provided on their personal information form.

Hoping that Lieutenant Snart wouldn't even notice her appearance (not saying that gay men didn’t pay attention to women’s clothing, _ but _), the rookie exited the ladies' room and headed to the bustling basement where the Contraband Department was located (it was nicknamed ‘the Snart Contraband Unit’, or SCU for short).

Ignoring the curious or leering glances thrown in her direction, Iris quickly approached the open door of Lt. Snart's office…Where someone was getting yelled at.

"Let your snotty friends know that _ none of you _ is allowed to stand closer than ten feet away from _ my _ evidence! Now, scram!"

A young forensic scientist stuttered apologies before rushing out of the room. He nearly tripped over his own feet when he almost collided with Iris, who calmly sidestepped him before raising her fist to knock on the door.

"No need to knock, West," Snart said loudly as he sat on top of his desk and grabbed some paperwork. "I clearly saw the intern almost knocking you over, which is a problem in itself. Why are you so _ small _? Then again, I wouldn't have given you the time of the day if I hadn't seen you neutralize a thug ten times your wet weight three days ago at the holding cells."

The young officer managed to only blink at the lieutenant's blunt speech before she lowered her arm.

She'd heard rumors about him, but seeing—and hearing—was believing.

"I'm fine with shouting from across the room," the older cop informed her at an even louder volume, "but if you came in here you could stop distracting my men!"

Iris heard a few whispered curse words behind her, and took decisive steps into the office, embarrassed enough that she risked the lieutenant’s ire by closing the door behind her.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, fighting to keep her gaze up as Snart frowned down at whatever he was reading.

His eyebrows went up when he looked up to lock eyes with her.

“For what, being an attractive woman? That’s hardly your fault,” he commented before sweeping a hand in front of him. “From one attractive person to another, I totally understand your struggle.”

Leonard Snart _ was _ an attractive man, a handsome mixture of runway model and ex-military (wasn’t he a former Marine? Or maybe Navy-Seal?). Iris would’ve swooned over him in college, sexual orientation and all.

“We don’t wear uniforms in the field, anyways, so you could actually be used as bait if you go heavier on the makeup now and then,” Snart advised with a quick hand gesture over his face. “The guys we go after are the usual toxic males who can’t let beautiful women pass them without trying to impress them. Tomaz and Saunders’ faces have become too familiar in the streets, so the timing is perfect really.”

“What do you mean, Lieutenant?” Officer West asked, refusing to believe what she’d just heard.

“Please tell me that you’re not one of those pretty and athletic but _ dumb _ ones,” he drawled as he gave her a quick once over. “What do _ you think _ I mean, West?”

Iris resisted showing her irritation at his insinuation, but she stood a little taller before answering his question.

“You made it sound like I could join in on a mission, sir,” she spoke up carefully.

“Not just on _ a _ mission,” Snart corrected her, “you’re _ permanently _ joining my unit effective…” 

He trailed off to look down at the papers he’d been reading, then waved them in front of him.

“...whenever these forms get approved,” he completed the sentence. “I’ll send Mick to speed up the process if needed, shouldn’t take more than a week. That should be enough time to get yourself a little sendoff party from Circulation, yes? Enjoy your last sips of alcohol, whiffs of tobacco and trips on weed. The only psychoactive substance tolerated here at SCU is caffeine. We’re clean twenty-four–seven.”

Iris didn’t dare talk back to her future direct superior to tell him that she didn’t even consume coffee. She did drink the occasional glass of wine at home and a couple beers when she went out with Linda or Stacy, but she could easily go without those too.

“What was your marksmanship score at your final eval, kiddo?” the lieutenant questioned her as he grabbed a pen to sign one of the forms.

“Fourteen,” Iris proudly informed him.

It was three points above the second best score of her class, and only half a point lower than the all time best score statewide. Finally she’d put her dad’s shooting lessons to good use.

“Make it fifteen at your physical next week,” Snart recommended as he lifted one finger, “and by the end of the year I want your training average to be sixteen,” he added when he ticked off a second finger.

This time, Iris couldn’t prevent her eyes from bulging out or her jaw from dropping.

_ Sixteen _ ? That was the average for _ SWAT officers _!

“We don’t always have the luxury to wait for SWAT, so all of us should be prepared to exchange fire with perps,” the older cop explained, unperturbed by her reaction. “And since we want them alive and ready to get roughened up some more during interrogation, we need accurate aims. So bump up your upper body routine and get those tiny shoulders strong enough for regular sessions at the shooting range.”

An awkward silence settled between the two cops as Iris mentally took notes of the lieutenant’s instructions.

“Yes, sir,” she managed to enunciate when Snart lifted an expectant eyebrow at her.

“That’s all for now,” the older cop declared before making a shoo motion. “Fill up the appropriate forms on your end within three days, but even before that report to Hunter to get access to the shooting range as well as training gear. Make sure that perv doesn’t get you everything in size extra small.” 

It wasn’t until hours later, when she clocked out for the day, that Iris West realized that she had been relocated to a special crime unit within the first six months of her career. And to get her on the field, Snart had to have requested for her promotion to at least Corporal.

_ Holy shit. _

**2015**

“Oh honey, I’m so sorry,” was Francine’s first words to Iris when she entered her parent’s house that evening.

The day had started so well for Sergeant West: it had been the first day of her last week of therapy, and Lawton had invited the whole team to celebrate her and Long’s upcoming return to the field. Iris’ paperwork had been lighter than ever, since she’d spent the past five weeks tending to all her supervising duties quite diligently. Her parents had invited her to join them for some charity dinner, and the young woman had been excited to get all dolled up for an event she knew Linda would also attend.

Then, a few minutes before leaving her apartment, Iris had received a call from Sergeant Kendra Saunders, a former teammate from the Snart’s Contraband unit.

The usually cheerful and witty woman had started the conversation with such a subdued tone that Iris had felt that something was wrong right away.

_ “I thought it would be better if you heard it directly from us, Purple,” _ Saunders had said after exchanging a few unenthusiastic pleasantries.

_ “Off with it, Hawkgirl,” _ Iris had tried to tease, using the former sniper’s codename. _ “What’s up? Don’t tell me that Rory finally went and burned down the station with his incinerator.” _

_ “It’s Len,” _ Saunders had simply said, and then Iris had started to worry.

_ “What's wrong? Is he hurt? Did Scudder ambushed him?” _ she’d asked hurriedly.

Sam Scudder used to be a petty thief from district five, and had graduated from the same high school as Leonard Start. Scudder's criminal notoriety had grown alongside Snart’s fame as a cop.

In 2013, Scudder’s name had gone up and landed on the _ top five _ of the SCU’s red list once he’d become a meta-human, calling himself Mirror Master.

Iris had still been part of Snart’s team then, so she knew that Scudder becoming a greater danger to the public back was what had led the newly promoted Captain Snart to disregard the rule saying that only members of the MFU could have access to stun guns. Snart had made his best tech guy, Rip Hunter, build him a stun gun, only for the weapon to have a defective cooling system. Despite the huge flaw, which made the gun occasionally shoot ice blasts, Snart had kept and used the gun, earning the nickname of ‘Captain Cold’.

_ “Len’s dead,” _ Kendra had corrected Iris, her voice breaking.

Devastated to the point that she couldn’t even cry, Sergeant West couldn’t help but remember what Barry Allen had said about Snart’s unit closing in on Blacksmith and Goldface.

_ “Confronting them directly would be a death sentence,” _ The Flash had warned.

Was it what Len had done? Had he tried to take on the king and queen of the black market alone?

According to Kendra, Leonard had left the station without warning anyone. Had Hunter not installed a GPS tracker on the cold gun, Snart’s body would’ve never been found in some back alley. Captain Cold’s face had been unrecognizable, so brutal had been his beating.

Before the coroner had even started the autopsy, Hunter had used one of his gadgets to scan Leonard's body and had detected traces of metal, pure gold in fact.

_ Goldface _.

“I know that you and Captain Snart were close,” Iris’ mother’s voice brought her back to the present, and she finally returned the hug that was failing to comfort her.

“Your father is almost ready,” Francine informed Iris as she pulled her to the big couch in the living room. “You’re still coming with us, aren’t you? You shouldn’t stay alone tonight, sweetheart. Didn’t you say that Linda would be at the dinner too? Do you think that you could stay with her?”

Iris knew that Linda would love to host her, but the cop wasn’t in the mood to be distracted by her reporter friend.

She was in the mood to _ plot her revenge _, and she knew just who to contact to get started.

* * *

Barry had been reading reports on one of Caitlin’s latest research: the development of a temporary meta-gene suppressor drug, which would help metas evade detection from the meta-alert app.

The app was officially only used by law enforcement, but those who could afford the smartwatches were buying them unobstructed and using them to discriminate against meta-humans in the workforce, in schools, and even at public events. Some pop star had just lost most of their fame and fandom when they’d been found out to be a meta, all because one of their VIP fans had worn the watch during a post-concert meet and greet.

The speedster was scanning through the list of possible human testing for the drug—he was thinking of volunteering to be the first guinea pig, since whatever side-effect would only be temporary—when Cisco barged into his pseudo secret office.

“You won’t believe it,” his boss and friend said as he threw his cell phone at him.

Barry almost didn’t catch the high-tech device just to annoy the engineer, but he was curious so he plucked the phone midair and read the email displayed on the screen.

He had to read the short message multiple times to convince himself that it wasn’t the fruit of his imagination.

It was _ Sergeant Iris West _ asking Francisco Ramon for assistance to get intel on Goldface’s whereabouts. The cop’s language was a bit blunt and harsh about asking for Cisco’s help, reminding him that it was his fault that dangerous men such as Keith Kenyon were roaming the streets of Central City with superpowers.

Iris was asking Cisco to meet her at a charity dinner tonight if possible. She'd even left him her _ personal cell phone number _.

“I’m willing to ignore her condescending tone,” Cisco claimed with a scowl, “but does your not-girlfriend really think that I have nothing else to do but be her sidekick? There’s no way I’m working with the fucking police.”

“Not with the police, with just _ her _,” Barry corrected her, disbelief turning into hope.

“Just her? What can one regular woman do alone?” the breacher asked skeptically.

“The same 'regular woman' who found out about the particle accelerator and figured out Eiling’s targets without ever meeting the man,” the speedster reminded him flatly, “_ and _ who put us in contact with eight metas, two of whom could’ve been hurt by their own powers without our timely intervention?”

“Alright, Romeo, _ I get it _ , your Juliette is flawless,” Cisco joked with a dismissive flap of his hand. “But I still can’t meet her at that charity dinner. Even if I _ could _ go, I have a video conference with XG Jishu scheduled in forty minutes. Hopefully Ellen and Preston will do me justice at the event.”

“You know, maybe if Hartley didn’t _ hate us _ right now,” the engineer kept going as Barry committed Iris' number to memory, “he could’ve asked Palmer to make us a copy of that meta-human app signal scrambler that I’ve heard is circulating on the black market. That way, Caitlin and Ronnie could’ve gone through the security screening. Seriously, Barry, what bee stung you and made you assault a _ disabled _ friend?”

“Hartley isn’t _ my _ friend, and he’s certainly not disabled,” Barry corrected R.I.’s CEO as he tapped a finger of the report he’d been reading. “And in a few weeks you’ll be able to attend any event you want, Mr. Ramon. But for tonight, how about _ I _ go with Ellen and Preston? Potential clients might not take your P.A. and phoney CFO seriously, but they might be persuaded to give you a call by one of your trustees.”

“You’re not one of my trustees,” Cisco pointed out, unamused.

“I_ should be _ one of your trustees, I own fifty-two percent of your company,” Barry argued with a shrug of his shoulders. “Anyways, it’s just for tonight so I can talk to Iris.”

“Even though she _ doesn’t _ want to talk to you?” the CEO brought up as he narrowed his eyes. “If she did, she would have contacted you instead of me.”

“Contacted me, _ how _?” the speedster asked rhetorically. “My current cell phone number is registered under a fake name.”

“Are you forgetting that you can’t get past security either, dark speedster?” the breacher asked back.

“You just said that there’s a signal scrambler circulating on the black market,” Barry pointed out as he took out his cell phone to call Ralph Dibny.

“If that P.I. friend of yours can tell you exactly where to find a scrambler on time for you to attend the dinner, I won’t just let you attend in my stead, but I’ll allow Dibny to become an executive member of Team Flash,” Cisco promised.

Barry refrained from letting him know that Ralph had no intention of joining the team because he hated Cisco for what he'd done to him.

“Allen, I’m about to finally have that date with Sue,” Ralph said after picking the phone on the first ring. “So make it quick, please. Pun intended.”

“Have you heard of a device that scrambles the signal of the meta-human alert app?” Barry asked.

“There’s a device like that? I’d like to have it!” Dibny exclaimed. “Where can I get one? Is that a Palmer’s Tech gadget, again?”

“No idea, all I know is that its sale is only illegal for now,” Barry admitted.

“Give me a couple of weeks,” the investigator requested. “I think I could painstakingly get some info about it from an SCU contact.”

“SCU, as in Star City University?” the speedster questioned. “That’s my alma mater. Maybe I know your contact? I could definitely get to them earlier than in two weeks.”

“SCU as in 'Snart’s Contraband Unit' in district five,” the Elastic Man corrected him. “And no, you can’t get to them any earlier than that. In fact, tell all the metas you know to stay away from district five for a while. Apparently a meta killed Snart himself, news broke out this afternoon. Word on the grapevine is that Goldface did it, but I'm skeptical. Snart’s team is still under shock, but the moment they recover, you can bet your fast feet that there will be hell to pay for us metas. You’re right to be looking for that signal scrambler right now. You and I are fine, but the average closeted meta-human is going to suffer the consequences of that cop’s death. Seriously, between you and Goldface, I’m surprised that the cops haven’t just rounded us all up and shoved us in concentration camps or something.”

Barry _ wasn’t _ surprised. He had Bellows on his side exactly so that such a scenario never happened. Plus, by killing McMillan, The Flash had indirectly warned the government that angering him would be a _ very bad idea _. 

What _ did _ surprise Barry was the fact that there were _ rumors _ about Goldface killing Snart. 

Kenyon's M.O. was to actually send a semi-publicly _ warning _ to his targets, giving them a chance to pay a steep price for their survival before the planned date of their murder.

Snart had to have been a thorn in Goldface's impenetrable shiny armor, but Kenyon himself had been unlikely to directly suffer from the famous cop's relentless work. The guy could turn _ anything he touched _ into gold! His closest associates would've been the true victims of the policeman's successful raids. 

Something more insidious was at play here, and Barry was glad that Iris had transferred to district seven. Like Ralph had just speculated, the tension between the police and metas was about to skyrocket in district five.

“Hey, Ralph, remember Iris West from CC High?” the speedster asked his friend.

“Do I remember our _ homecoming queen _? What kinda dumb question is that, Allen? Of course I remember West. Matter of fact, she was part of Snart’s team until, what, last year? Never imagined that Miss Sunshine would become a badass cop, but then again, I never imagined that your skinny nerdy self would turn into a serial killer, either. Only in Central City, seriously…Why are you letting me ramble and make us both waste our time here?”

“I’ll let you know when I find out about the scrambler, thank you, Ralph,” Barry said before hanging up and composing Iris West’s number, ignoring Cisco’s interrogating eyes.

He paused with his thumb hovering over the call key.

Damn it, was he actually _ nervous _ at the idea of calling Iris? Yeah, he’d dreamed of being able to talk to her on the phone since the time he wore corrective glasses (not that they’d corrected anything, his _ powers _ had) but this was _ so not _the scenario he’d imagined back then.

“Dude, don’t you think that you should be over your high school crush by now?” Cisco drawled after noticing his hesitation. “You’ve _ killed _ six of her colleagues, how’s your brain still not processing the fact that _ Iris West will hate your guts forever _?”

“Shut up, Cisco,” Barry demanded as he tapped the call button and pressed the device to his ear.

She picked up after the second ring.

“Hey Linda” she greeted so cheerfully that Barry did a double take at the phone “We’re on our way! You’re still coming, right?”

The speedster realized that, _ of course _, Iris hadn’t told anyone that Cisco was responsible for people turning into meta-humans. So she had to fake-talk to this Linda…Oh, Linda Park, Iris’ high school best friend.

“Actually, meta-humans are banned from such events because the security staff uses meta-gene detectors to screen guests,” Barry informed her.

“What? I can’t hear you! I’ll see you there, okay?” the cop spoke quickly before hanging up on him.

“Exactly what did you expect would happen by telling her that?” Cisco asked mockingly before taking back his phone. “You’re weird, man. Anyways, I’ll go check on Ellen and Preston.”

Just as the CEO of Ramon Industries left the room, Barry got a few text messages in a row.

** _I asked for Ramon’s help, NOT yours._ **

** _Screening out meta-humans at public events is illegal. The law only authorizes law enforcers to use the alert to locate criminals LIKE YOU._ **

Barry bit his lower lip to prevent himself from smiling too widely.

** _The Flash is a criminal, Barry Allen isn’t._ **

** _And they do, in fact, screen out metas at public events. Illegally._ **

** _Was wondering if a friend of yours at SCU knows about a signal scrambler? The device is only available on the black market._ **

** _My condolences about Snart._ **

Barry almost deleted the last message, but it was written sincerely. He hadn’t known the man personally, but he had appreciated his work. Anyone who made Central City safer without discriminating against meta-humans was a hero in the speedster’s book. And now Barry valued him because he'd been Iris' boss before she'd transferred. He'd helped her be the tough and uncompromising cop that the speedster admired.

Iris didn’t say anything for five minutes, then texted him a charged question.

** _Did you ask Goldface to do it?_ **

For a moment, Barry didn’t get the question, but then it dawned on him, and he couldn’t even feel hurt about it. He deserved it.

He_ had _ killed many of Iris’ colleagues, and had once promised that he’d get rid of everyone who valued her. The question was fair, Iris couldn't know that Barry hadn't known that she'd worked with Snart until ten minutes ago.

** _No, Goldface and I have never even met. And if I had anything to do with Snart's death, I wouldn’t then be contacting you to offer my help to catch his killer. If I wanted to see you, I'd simply ask for a date one more time. I'm not into convoluted schemes._ **

He doubted that Iris would believe him, but he wasn’t going to give up on his chance to work with her. That’s all he wanted other than going on a date with her.

** _You were right, they screen for metas._ **

** _Tell Ramon that I’ll manage._ **

When Barry texted her back to say that he could wait for her outside of the venue, he received an alert saying that the contact had blocked him.

“Shit,” the speedster whispered, dropping his phone on the desk and running a hand through his hair.

Iris West was driving him crazy. 

It was a _ welcome _ change from going crazy over not being able to help enough meta-humans. 

After his lightning had turned red, Barry’s main emotions had been rage and contempt. Rage at Eiling and his task force, and contempt towards the bigot residents of Central City and towards his own friends, who wouldn't help him help vulnerable metas.

But ever since Iris had re-entered his life, the speedster had been on a roller coaster of emotions: longing, lust, wonder, nervousness, _ hope... _ His head, body and heart were in disagreement all the time. It was _ exhilarating _.

Iris made Barry feel _ alive _ , when for years he'd been just _surviving_ and helping other metas survive. 

He was going to team up with her on this Snart murder case, even if he had to let her punch him in the face for it.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's more WestAllen in next chapter, face to face this time. It should be posted along with this one!


	11. You Better Know What You're Fighting For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why does Eiling want the Godai?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that I've made minor changes to the timeline (LOL a true TF fanfic right here). In chapter 7, instead of a whole year, Eddie was in a coma for six months, so he woke up in 2015, the same year that Barry injured him.
> 
> This is another long chapter. The flashback is all plot, but the rest is all WestAllen UST. Mild warning for Barry and Iris not being nice to each other, but by now you should know that they're not the Gold Standard in this story.
> 
> Once again, I recommend listening to "Angel With A Shot Gun" by The Cab if you're one of those readers who use music to fully immerse themselves in a story, but listen to "Smooth Operator" by Shade too, which I used for earlier chapters.

**2010**

“Is that Japanese? This alien is speaking _ Japanese _?” Wade Eiling asked when he looked at Waller, after forcing himself to tear his eyes away from the creature pacing around the glass isolation room downstairs.

Until recently, the army general hadn’t believed a word of the rumors about Area 51. He thought that he would've been told about aliens a while ago if they'd been real.

_ Clearly not. _

“A medieval version of the language, yes,” the spy answered. “The theory is that it first made contact with us back in the seventeenth century, after landing in Japan. It has returned but this time on U.S. soil, but thankfully we have plenty of experts in linguistics at our disposal now. Apparently, it has been repeating the same few sentences over and over again for almost a year now.”

“And what did your experts say that it wants?” Eiling questioned with a frown as he looked back at the humanoid creature.

Why had they waited a year to let him know about this? Even Waller seemed to be late to the party.

“It’s asking for the champions that were promised, if I remember that part correctly.” Waller informed him with a frown of her own. “Five of them. The Godai.”

“Godai,” the general repeated. “I remember from karate that ‘go’ means five. What does dai stand for?”

“I don’t know a word of Japanese, but my experts mentioned the five elements in Japanese Buddhism,” the stout woman explained. “Earth, water, fire, wind and void.”

“Could’ve sworn that the fifth element was lightning,” Wade mumbled as the alien started shouting some more in the old language.

“What is it saying now?” Waller asked over a microphone, and some anonymous scholar with a moderate Japanese accent answered.

“Time is running out! The cycle is almost over!” the person translated, their tone mimicking the panic from the creature’s own voice. “Speaking of, ma’am, we just received the calendar that NASA interpreted from the star charts,” the man then added in a neutral voice.

Waller unlocked her tablet and showed Eiling an astronomy diagram he couldn’t make sense of, but there was a helpful chart interpreting whatever data could be drawn from it.

_ October 2012–March 2016. _

“So, something is supposed to happen between October 2012 and March 2016…but we don’t know _ what _?” the soldier asked the secret agent as he returned the electronic device.

“Oh, _ I know _ what is supposed to happen,” Waller claimed as she balled up her hands into fists. “What else could it be but an _ alien invasion _?”

“This alien doesn’t look much like an invader,” the general objected skeptically.

Its stature was intimidating, for sure, as it was above eight feet tall and accordingly thick-boned. But it hadn’t displayed any hostile behavior. It was just walking around, talking a lot and shouting occasionally.

“No, this one is definitely a messenger,” the woman nicknamed ‘The Wall’ asserted before she locked eyes with Wade. “A harbinger of doom,” she added, her voice even but cold.

Eiling truly wanted to scoff at her dramatic speculation, but really, if aliens were coming in peace, they’d sent a committee of multiple diplomats, right? Not some lunatic demanding that they bring out ‘champions’.

“Is that why I’m here?” the soldier questioned. “You want me to prepare for an invasion?”

Amanda Waller’s laugh was a dreadful sound. Once, Eiling had heard it right before he’d seen the woman gun down one of her own agents, who’d brought her what he’d assumed had been bad news.

“You think that _ mere humans _ could measure up to the soldier versions of _ that _?” she asked rhetorically as she pointed a perfectly manicured finger down to the moving alien. “No, you’re here to pick the members of a task force from a list of people I have compiled for you. Take a look.

She swiped and tapped for a few seconds on her tablet, then gave it back to Wade.

“And what is the purpose of this task force? Where should I take its members once gathered?” he asked, quite satisfied with the list.

A few of his own fellow soldiers were on it. One promising boy in particular, Eddie Thawne, was on the list.

Excellent.

“Central City,” Waller answered only the second question as she walked away from the observation console, gesturing for him to follow. “Because that’s where we found _ him _,” she added before the general could even ask her why.

They took the elevator down multiple levels and emerged in a hallway lined up with holding cells, the doors made of reinforced metal, equipped with multiple locking systems.

“Our experts in Japanese medieval culture agreed with me that this subject’s special ability correspond to an elemental power,” the big woman recounted before lining up her face with a retinal scan, then pressing her thumb on a keypad. “But they insisted that the Godai should also have specific traits of character, and he didn’t pass the personality test.”

A robotic voice identified her and requested a password, which Waller provided in a foreign language, sounded like Portuguese.

The secret agent brought the soldier into yet another observation room, this time leveled with the isolation room, the two spaces separated by a mere thick glass wall.

Beyond that wall, a man in a yellow suit was seated on an immaculate tile floor, his hands bound by odd, thick handcuffs.

White guy, blonde with blue eyes, mid-forties to early-fifties, looking mighty calm for someone who was in the custody of Amanda Waller.

“Coincidentally, when I asked him if he was one of the Godai, he told me that I had the wrong guy and the wrong timeline.”*

“Wrong timeline?” Eiling echoed as he inspected the costumed man more closely.

That man wasn’t just calm. He looked _ smug _ , what with the self-assured look in his eyes and the smirk on his lips. Wade knew that the man couldn’t see them from his side, but it sure looked like he _ knew _ what was going on.

“The subject is a time-traveller,” Waller shared. “I haven’t managed to make him say which year he’s from, but the tech he had on his person and his DNA suggest that he’s from the future.”

“I’m still hoping that this is a weird dream,” the general admitted with a sigh.

“His DNA is what brings you and I here, actually,” the woman kept going without acknowledging his complaint. “Are you familiar with the term ‘meta-human’, General?”

“No, but feel free to enlighten me,” he quipped.

“It’s an umbrella term referring to human beings who have a specific set of genetic variations that confer them abilities. Like Superman.”

“Superman is an _ alien _,” Eiling pointed out. “And couldn’t he be one of the champions? He's all about protecting all of humanity, at the risk of our nation's national security.”

“Superman possesses too many extraordinary abilities, and while he matches for the elements of fire and wind alone, to my utter disappointment he does not pass the personality test for either element,” Waller explained. “And yes, Superman _ is _ an alien, but there are human beings from _ Earth _ who also display extraordinary abilities. Like _ this _ subject. Those meta-humans are too elusive, however, and none of the ones we’ve observed so far display elemental powers. But as I implied, the present subject’s DNA is going to help. You see those cuffs? My techs reversed-engineered them from the subject’s own technology. They emit a frequency that disturbs the biomolecular integrity of the genes that make him special.”

“The way kryptonite weakens Superman,” Eiling guessed, and Waller nodded in confirmation.

“By comparing the subject’s DNA sequence at baseline to his DNA sequence when he wears the cuffs, our researchers were able to hypothesize several ways to make the appropriate genetic mutations happen on other humans,” she informed him, and the subtle lift of her lips suggested that she was at the end of her exposé.

“You want to create these Godai _ artificially _?” the soldier asked, stunned.

“You heard the messenger: ‘time is running out, the cycle is almost over,’” the secret agent reminded him. “Whether the invasion will happen in 2012 or 2016, we don’t have _ time _ to find the five superpowered individuals who could help us deal with the upcoming crisis. For all we know, they all live in some remote regions all over the world. And before you ask, no we _ didn’t _ find any candidates in Japan. That’s where the higher ups looked first, wasting their time before they finally brought me up to speed. It only took my team two months to find this subject, and _ two weeks _ after that to figure out a solution to our problem.”

“Which is in Central City,” the general guessed. “I’ll assemble the task force right away. Anyone among the civilians that you recommend?”

“Patricia ‘Patty’ Spivot,” Waller suggested. “Brilliant and impressionable, the best combination for a scientist. Make her feel valued, and she’ll do anything that you or the leader of your team ask. As luck would have it, _ she’s _ from Central City, and might be able to get us a meeting with the local experts on fringe science.”

“Do these local experts have names?” the soldier bothered to ask, though he knew that he’d get the piece of information soon enough.

“Dr. Tessa Morgan and Dr. Harrison Wells,” the spy immediately answered.

**2015**

“Iris,” Scott Evans breathed out, his eyes looking her up and down. “You look…like a dream.”

Iris barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes, at the journalist then at herself.

Of course Scott was being sincere. She’d spent over an hour getting ready, she _ knew _ that she looked amazing in that off-the-shoulder long sleeve, fishtail body con dress. Although purple was Iris' favorite color, she exploited the fact that dark red seemed to have been created to complement her skin tone. So did silver, the color of her closed-toe stilettos and of her thin hanging earrings. She wasn't wearing any other jewelry because she'd worked enough on her makeup and hair.

Iris had been so excited about socializing for once, and had hoped to maybe flirt with Scott, but after the news of Len's death, she just wasn’t in the mood to enjoy her evening anymore. She’d already had to fake looking cheered up by Linda for the past half hour. Fortunately, some famous baseball player currently had her best friend's full attention.

“You look great too, Scott,” she returned the compliment with a forced smile that she immediately hid by taking a sip of champagne.

Ugh, so _ bubbly _. She wasn't use to alcohol anymore, not even after leaving Snart’s team…

_ Damn it _. She couldn’t get Len out of her mind, and now she couldn’t even plan her revenge because Francisco Ramon couldn’t attend this event. 

Iris had pointed out the illegal use of the meta app at the front doors to her parents. Her mother had immediately asked to talk to the head of security, but the security guards had claimed that the man was busy. Iris’ father had just shrugged. 

Joe West, shrugging at a case of _ social injustice _. After learning about what Johnson had done to his wife, Iris supposed that her father’s indifference to the meta-humans’ plight was an easier pill to swallow. 

“I didn’t know that you attended such events,” Evans admitted. “This is my first time seeing you at a charity dinner. I’ve always assumed that you were too busy apprehending superpowered criminals for such mundane activities—I still have a very hard time imagining you raiding some criminal’s warehouse, by the way. Armed to the teeth and covered from head to toe in that cumbersome gear? I don't see it.”

Iris didn’t get offended by those condescending comments about her being a SWAT officer anymore. She knew that she didn’t fit the profile of an average elite cop. Had she not been very athletic since she was a kid, she wouldn’t have had what it took for a person with her small frame to pass the SWAT physical evaluations.

“I've heard that she's pretty badass in that uniform of hers, actually," a voice that Iris hoped she was _ imagining _ said behind her.

The soft press of a large hand onto the bare skin of her upper back confirmed that she wasn't imagining anything, as the warmth emanating from the palm was as real as the smart-looking man the hand belonged to.

Iris took a discreetly calming breath as he stationed himself to her right.

"Sorry, you are?" Scott asked with a barely concealed frown at the man who jumped into their conversation.

"Ah, my apologies! Barry Allen," the bane of Iris' existence answered so pleasantly that the journalist automatically shook the proferred hand before the name clicked in his head.

"Oh, the Allens' accident…I mean—I'm so sorry for your loss," the journalist stuttered before sending a silent message of confusion and shock to the cop via his wide eyes.

"It's been some time, but thank you," Barry replied politely before drawing back his right hand and looking down at Iris. "Sorry I'm late," he apologized with a fond smile that the sergeant wanted to punch off his face.

"You made it, that's the most important," she replied as sweetly as she could.

She had to bite the inside of her lower lip to stop herself from making an embarrassing noise as Allen's left hand slowly slid down her back then gently wrapped around the left side of her waist. Unfortunately, she couldn't quite hide the shiver induced by the skin-to-skin and skin-to-fabric friction along her spine (did she imagine the snap of electric charge?) and the cop looked down and away to avoid staring back at Scott, who had been silently watching the whole scene with his scrutinizing reporter's gaze.

"Hey, would you like a drink?" Iris tried to distract Barry as she slightly lifted the champagne flute in her left hand.

She took a few side steps while pretending to look around for a waiter, successfully getting away from his light hold.

"Oh, I haven't had alcohol in _ so long _ ," Allen replied with such unexpected excitement that it took a moment for Iris to react when he took _ her _ glass.

Despite her shock, she did notice that he intentionally placed his lower lip against the stain of her lipstick before downing half of the sparkling wine…all the while staring down at her with his stupidly pretty eyes.

But after swallowing the champagne, Barry frowned then stared at the stolen flute with utter disappointment, and he whispered "right, I forgot." 

That threw the cop for yet another loop, so much so that Evans recovered from Barry's boldness before her. 

"I don't believe that I've seen you at this type of events either, Mr. Allen," the journalist stated casually. "Are you one of Central City's finest, too?"

"I'm actually anti-gun, so no, I'm not a cop," Barry answered the reporter. "If you'd excuse us—Iris, may I have a moment?"

Iris gave the most sincere apologetic smile to Scott before she let Allen guide her away from the crowd towards a quiet hallway, deftly placing the flute on the empty tray of a passing waiter.

Before the cop could think of a way to warn her father of The Flash's presence—Joe was busy chatting with Detective Singh's husband, Robert Griffin—she was gently pushed against a wall, hidden from prying eyes.

Iris was thinking of finally giving Barry a taste of her fist when he himself stepped away from her, looking like a deer in the headlights as he tucked himself against the wall on the opposite side of the hallway. He almost messed up his tastefully combed hair by running a hand into it, his eyes looking her up and down.

"My God…Are you even real?" he said in a breathy voice. "You're so beautiful. What the hell, Iris."

Iris rolled her eyes at him even though she could tell that he _ too _ was sincere.

"How did you get in here?" Sergeant West interrogated him without acknowledging or returning his compliment, even though it made her cheeks flush—thank goodness for her skin tone _ and _ the multiple layers of makeup products.

"Frankly, I initially planned on waiting for you outside," the meta-human admitted with a shrug. "But then I saw your mother lecture a guy I'm assuming is the head of security, and she collected the meta alert watches."

Iris lightly hit the back of her head against the wall behind her.

She had done this to herself! If she hadn't told her parents, the speedster couldn't have made it inside.

"Anyways, here," Barry said as he extended a cell phone towards her. It looked too cheap not to be a burner.

"Tell me what you want me to do with it first," the cop demanded as she tucked her clutch underneath her arm after retrieving her own cell phone.

(To do what? Call 911? She _was_ the police, and the only officer safe from the dark speedster)

"Keep in touch, of course," he replied with raised eyebrows. "You blocked my number on your cell phone."

"Did you consider that it _ could be _ because I don't want to talk to you?" Iris suggested, trying to sound bored.

Not that she was thrilled by the idea that The Flash had basically stalked her...But at least her evening was not dull anymore.

And since the speedster insisted on teaming up...

"Goldface killed Snart, the body had traces of pure gold all over," she shared the decisive piece of information. "With the only cop capable of tracking him down dead, Kenyon probably thinks that he's now untouchable. I want to prove him _ wrong_."

"Are we sure that it's him?" Allen asked with a narrow frown. "Any thug could have worn gold-covered gloves and beaten Snart. Kenyon has killed cops before, yes, but it was always in self-defense or in retaliation for physical harm to his wife or his close associates."

"Len was a Navy-Seal," Iris informed him, refraining from making a comment about a cop-killer defending another. "_ Very few _ people could've bested him in hand to hand combat. It had to be a meta-human. Unless someone _ very rich _ hired a professional to frame Goldface, it has to be the guy himself."

"Or someone very rich hired a professional to raise _anti-meta sentiment_," the speedster suggested with a sigh.

"How are you turning such a straightforward murder case into a conspiracy theory?" The cop asked, incredulous. "Snart was closing in on Goldface and Blacksmith, so Goldface killed him. Plain and simple."

"Like I told you before, confronting these two face to face would be suicide," Allen reminded her. "The keywords here being 'face to face'. Kenyon and Black don't murder people in anonymous alleys. They make _ examples _ of those who antagonize them. Law enforcers, thugs, meta-humans, regular humans…They announce the murders _ ahead of time _ and claim the kills _ after _ the targets are dead. It's been hours since Snart's death and Goldface hasn't made any announcement. This is far from a straightforward murder case, Iris. Come on, just today I learned that you were part of Snart's team—"

Iris couldn't help scoffing at his words.

"What?" He asked, frowning in confusion.

"You really want me to believe that you didn't already know every public piece of information that there is about me?" The cop said before she realized how self-important that sounded.

Barry blinked at her, his long eyelashes fluttering in a way that shouldn't make Iris think 'cute' but clearly her brain wasn't to be trusted whenever she was in the speedster's presence.

"I'd rather get to know you myself," Allen finally replied, a smile growing on his lips. "So, how about dinner at Frankie's…"

"Let's pretend that neither of us said anything after you brought up the fact that I was part of Snart's team," Sergeant West requested. "_ Please _."

She looked at him as earnestly as she could, yet somehow disappointment flared in her chest when he nodded seriously, his mischievous smile gone.

God, he was driving her _ crazy _.

"You were part of Snart's team," he repeated with an argumentative tone, "do you think that he could've just left the station without notifying anyone?"

"No," the former SCU member admitted, and now that she thought about it... "And if he'd suspected that Goldface was targeting him, he wouldn't have taken just his cold gun. He would've had the whole team ready to back him up, wherever he was going."

But he _had_ taken his cold gun, so had he expected to see a meta-human? Scudder maybe?

"What are you thinking?" Barry asked quietly.

He'd leaned away from his wall, and as Iris looked up at him he leaned a forearm against _ her _ wall, placing it right above her head.

"What do you think you're doing?" The cop whispered, too stunned to be angry at yet another bold move from him.

"I'm asking you to share your thought-process so I can help you solve this case, _ Sergeant _," he answered calmly as he hovered above her, bending slightly to be not quite at eye level, but allowing her to look at him without having to crane her neck too much.

"Snart had a longstanding feud against Sam Scudder, a thief who adopted the name of Mirror Master as a meta-human," Iris managed to tell the speedster even as she internally fought to suppress the dueling urges to shove him away and to lift up on her toes to—

"I haven't met Mirror Master in person, but I've met his meta-human girlfriend and partner in crime," Allen told her as he pushed off the wall and shoved his hands and the burner phone in his pockets. "What's her name? Dillon…Rosa Dillon. She makes anyone who looks her in the eye lose their balance. I don't know where she lives but I know who could find that info. I can just blindfold her and her powers won't be a problem."

"Did you just conspire to kidnap a woman?" The cop asked, her outrage dousing the fire that had been creeping up her spine. "Is there anything that's _ too low _ for you, Allen?"

"That woman is a thief," The speedster reminded her with a raised eyebrow. "You can arrest her once I'm done interrogating her. That would be the second criminal I hand you on a silver platter, West, yet you won't accept to go on even one date with me."

"You also made me sit on the uncomfortable leather chair of a shrink's office, so don't expect words of gratitude from me," Iris countered flippantly before realization dawned on her. "Damn it, I bet that the guys from SCU won't be allowed to work with the lead detective on the case. They might not get forty freaking hours total, but they'll be forced to get therapy too. Len was _family_."

"Therapy?" Barry repeated, his eyes searching hers.

Movement in her peripheral vision made Iris looked towards the ballroom, and she saw her mother look back at her, an amused smile on her lips.

Thank goodness that Francine West didn't know the face of Barry Allen or she would be sporting a very panicked look instead.

"Fuck, Iris, I'm sorry," the speedster apologized, and the cop shook her head in mild disgust.

"You're sorry for traumatizing me but _not_ for killing Peterson," she pointed out. 

"You think that your team leader would have hesitated to shoot me, with a stun gun _ or _ a rifle, if he'd been at your spot behind the pillars?" The Flash asked as he walked back into her personal space, this time looming over her. "Arresting or killing me would make any cop's career. Just because _ you're _ too good of a person to shoot people in the back doesn't mean that your shield mates are the same."

"Peterson didn't have a clear shot on you, and he had a _ stun _ gun," Iris bit out behind gritted teeth, keeping a calm demeanor in case her mother was still watching. "He was no immediate threat to you. Stop finding excuses—"

"I'm not finding excuses," Barry denied. "I don't have to justify my actions to anyone, and I already told you that I won't apologize for my crimes. I'm letting you know that you are _ special, _ Iris, not just to me because I'm in love with you. You could officially help _meta-humans_…"

"I'm MFU-SWAT, you idiot!" She hissed, poking her phone into his chest, internally mortified at how casually he was expressing the twisted feelings he had for her. "I arrest criminal metas and terrorize innocent metas for a living!"

"Did you hear what you just said? 'Terrorize innocent metas'...You acknowledge that there _ are _ innocent metas, unlike the majority of cops! I didn't know Snart personally, but if there's something I liked about him it's that he didn't discriminate against meta-humans either. Maybe it's a district five thing."

It very possibly was. Iris guessed that it was because violent crimes were rare in the area: counterfeit consumer goods sales was the number one crime, illegal drug dealing a close second, and human-trafficking in transit to district three or four was the third main type of crime. Iris hadn't personally dealt with any meta-human when she was part of Snart's team. Most of the perps she'd arrested were thieves and illegal traders, their names and faces unimportant to the district residents. Scudder, the only notable meta-human that the unit dealt with, had built his notoriety before he’d become a meta-human, so he wasn’t hated for his special abilities. 

"In any case, you guys are the exception to the rule," Allen kept going. "Most people in Central City, cops _ and _ civilians, think that we're _ freaks_ and that we deserve to be locked up until we die. And now that Snart's team think that their leader was killed by Goldface, they might not be as tolerant of meta-humans as they used to be. The fact that they won't be allowed to work on the case might make them even more volatile. I _ won't _ let them hurt any innocent metas, Iris. So either you keep them in check, or you prepare for more hours of therapy because I won't spare those cops just because they're _your friends_."

"You bastard," Iris almost said too loudly, remembering herself at the last second.

A quick glance informed her that her mother had stepped out of sight, so she quickly put her phone back into her clutch then slapped the accessory on the speedster's torso before giving into the urge to shove him against the wall on his side. 

She didn't care that he could use his speed to evade her, she pinned him to the wall with one forearm pressed to his throat, and the hand holding the clutch pressed against his solar plexus.

"Lay a finger on them and I'll gladly further my career by arresting you, _after_ I find a way to hurt you physically and mentally," she threatened with a slow and clear enunciation.

When she felt Barry start shaking, Iris thought that he was either fighting not to unleash his powers on her, or that he was shaking in outrage.

Then she saw him blush, and belatedly noticed his dilated pupils. If she'd been mortified by the expression of his love, she was downright disturbed by the fact that he was turned on by her roughing him up. She removed her arm from his throat but she decided not to step away from him, lest he take pleasure in her embarrassment.

Staying put ended up being a monumental _mistake_, because Barry placed his left hand on her lower back and this time slid it up her spine until his fingers firmly grabbed the low bun of her intricate updo.

Before Iris could get irritated that he was ruining her hair, the speedster pulled her against him and used a painful tug on her bun to have her face angled up just as he bent down his to whisper in her ear.

"You can do anything you want to me Iris, as long as there's no guns involved" he assured her in a low, seductive voice.

The cop closed her eyes and fought the arousal threatening to take over as her nose almost connected to his neck and she could smell his scent, feel his body heat and could actually hear the subtle hum of his powers.

She took a deep breath to re-center herself, only to let out a quiet gasp of surprise when Barry abruptly let go of her hair, the sudden removal of pain making her dizzy as endorphins flooded her brain. 

"Just don't let your friends hurt the metas in district five," the speedster instructed, and goosebumps erupted all over Iris' body when the soft and damp skin of his lips made the briefest contact with her ear. "I'm counting on you, Iris."

One second, Sergeant West was turned on beyond reason, ready to give into the other urge she'd been fighting...The next, she was alone in that hallway.

Later that night, she found the burner phone in her purse when she emptied it on the bed of Linda's guest bedroom, and _barely_ resisted the urge to throw it against a wall.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always welcome!
> 
> I still don't know how to upload pictures in a chapter, so if you're curious about Iris' dress, Google "Red Bardot Fishtail Bodycon Dress" by the brand missguided (which I know nothing about. Any violation of AO3 copyrights rules is unintentional). And check out the red carpet pictures of Candice Patton at the 32nd annual Paleyfest (LA, 2015) for her makeup and hairdo, though in the fic she tucked the hair in a low bun instead of letting it out in a ponytail.
> 
> * Reverse Flash won't get the chance to explain that part, but I will explain in the notes of the appropriate chapter!


	12. You Could Be The Greatest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry and Iris (and Cisco) catch Mirror Master; the impromptu Jitters meeting referred to in Chapter 5 happens; ALIENS! part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter starts in the middle of an action scene, there’s no part missing it’s intentional.  
One of the reasons why Iris keeps rejecting Barry is revealed.  
Do you still hate Eiling and Eddie for hunting down metas?
> 
> Chapter title from “Hall Of Fame” by The Script.

**2015**

  
“Well, that was trippy,” Quantum commented as he stood back up on slightly shaky legs, just as Barry sped across the apartment, grabbing Sam Scudder as soon as he exited the mirror at the front entrance.

“Abandoning your girlfriend? Coward,” The Flash said in his vibrating voice before speeding back to the living room on the open upper floor of the thieves' loft.

That floor was covered in broken pieces of mirror, which the place had a crazy number of. Not less than ten just in that room.

“Who the hell are _ you _ people? What the fuck do you want from me?” Mirror Master demanded as he vainly struggled against the speedster’s tight hold.

“Information about the death of Leonard Snart,” Iris answered after she was done tying an unconscious Rosa Dillon back on a chair.

Barry had totally neglected the fact that Dillon was a skilled thief, and hadn’t bound her hands and eyes too tightly to ensure her comfort and to put Iris at ease. Consequently, Dillon had managed to break free and had used her powers on Barry and Cisco as they were half-occupied with catching her elusive boyfriend.

Fortunately, Iris was able to kick ass even with her eyes closed.

Could she be any more perfect?

“You!” Scudder said as he took a good look at the cop in civvies. “I _ know _ you! Where have we met?”

“Guess, Scudder,” Sergeant West offered as she stood with leg splayed and fists on her hips.

“Sorry hun, but I can’t quite put a name to your pretty face,” Mirror Master replied flippantly, “maybe if you reminded me what your power is? Or did we meet at one of Blade’s parties?”

Barry was halfway through rolling his eyes at the thief’s comment on Iris’ beauty when he heard the name.

_ Blade _ . That was an alias for _ Blacksmith _, aka Amunet Black.

Since when was a petty thief from district five in the inner circle of the queen of the black market? Those ‘parties’ as they were called were exclusive to Black and Kenyon’s closest associates along with their goons. The rest of the crime world only read about them on encrypted forum threads.

“My powers?” Iris echoed as she crossed her arms over her chest and cocked one eyebrow in amusement. “I’m a cop.”

“Right,” Scudder replied sarcastically, but then he startled. “Oh, _ fuck _! You’re from Snart’s team!”

The fact that the thief started struggling even harder to get away from Barry proved that Iris had been right to suspect him of being involved in Captain Cold’s murder.

“You know whose identity you should also be aware of, Scudder?” the police officer asked as she jutted her chin in Barry’s direction. “That guy holding you up. Black suit, super fast runner…Don’t tell me that you don’t know _ The Flash _?”

Clearly Mirror Master knew about the dark speedster, because he immediately stopped struggling after mumbling another “fuck”.

“What the hell is a cop doing with a _ cop-killer _ ?” Scudder questioned, sounding confused. “Don’t you know that he could snap your neck in a split second? Oh, wait, he’s _ fucking _ you, is that it?”

“Don’t kill him!” Quantum shouted, and Barry wondered who he was addressing: him or Iris, who had unstrapped her gun—the one with _ real bullets _—and was aiming it at Scudder’s chest.

“Woah, woah, _ chill _ !” the burglar pleaded, though he was clearly not taking the threat of getting shot down seriously. “I didn’t say that it was a _ bad thing _! Gotta do what you gotta do to survive, right?”

“Is that why you killed Len? To _ survive _? Because it didn’t look like self-defense, you scum!” Iris spat as she stepped closer, her aim still on Scudder’s chest.

“One of us had to go eventually,” the thief justified, failing to shrug because of Barry’s hold on his arms. “Snart and I go way back, you were probably still in diapers when we first met. He taught me the ropes, did he ever tell you that?”

That unexpected piece of information didn’t seem to surprise Snart’s former protégée.

“Yeah, everyone on the team knows that Len was a bad boy in his youth,” she asserted. “But he straightened out when he joined the military, and when he came back to town, he tried to get you on the right track as well…That’s why he insisted on being the one to arrest you, because you two went ‘way back’.”

Barry saw Cisco panic a bit when Iris clicked off the safety of her gun before she kept going. 

“Yet you _ killed _ Snart and left his body in some dark alley, framing Goldface so that people would temporarily forget about you. You were thinking of fleeing Central City, weren’t you?”

“Now that you say that, there are a lot of packing boxes in this place,” Cisco acknowledged with a nod. 

“I wasn’t going far, actually,” Scudder corrected with a challenging edge in his voice. “And you really don’t want to hurt me, miss officer. If you do, my boss will hunt you down like the bitch you clearly a—Aaargh!”

Barry couldn’t help twisting the burglar’s arm a bit harder than necessary, but he only tore a tendon or two instead of breaking a few bones like he truly wanted to.

“Shit!" Scudder cursed before chuckling, "So, I was right, she's your woman, dark speedster? I’m sure that Blade and even Glitter would love to know that you have a weakness…”

“Weakness? Are you _ blind _, do you not see that gun pointed at you?” The Flash questioned, incredulous.

Major Blondie had claimed that Iris was Barry’s weakness too. Neither man realized that, while Barry might hesitate to act whenever Iris was in danger, Iris could fend for _ herself _. She didn’t need Barry to survive or live, and Barry was fine with that.

All he needed was for her to _ want him _ by her side.

“‘Blade and even Glitter would love to know’…” Iris quoted, frowning before locking eyes with Barry. “He’s referring to Blacksmith and Goldface, right?”

“Yeah,” The Flash confirmed, though he wasn’t following where she was going.

“Earlier he made it sound like he was one Blacksmith’s men, yet he’s framing Goldface?” she pointed out before addressing Scudder. “_ Why _?”

“Answer the damn question please, or I’ll have to witness your murder, or worse,” Quantum requested with a sigh. 

“I’m not scared of any of you,” Mirror Master lied so blatantly that Barry dislocated his shoulder to warn him not to do it again.

At least, with the thief in too much pain, the speedster felt confident enough to let him go, or rather to let him topple on the floor saturated with mirror shards.

“What are you thinking here?” Barry asked Iris, who scowled at him for manhandling her suspect, then put her gun away to help Scudder up.

(Which, thank goodness. Although he could outrun bullets, Barry did _ hate _ guns.)

“You told me that both Goldface and Blacksmith are upfront about their kills,” she answered the speedster once she had the burglar steady on his feet, “so clearly neither would want one of their own subordinates to kill people in their names, right?”

Scudder made the mistake to try to catch the cop into a chokehold. Iris hit him in the solar plexus,—_ ouch, _ that had to hurt—and he went back down on the floor.

“Who asked you to kill Snart, Scudder?” Iris asked the burglar with a meaner tone, and Scudder whined as he struggled to stay on his knees and one good arm.

“Is this even legal? You can’t assault the suspect of an investigation!” he complained, and the chuckle that Sergeant West gave in response chilled Barry to the bone.

_ “Never imagined that Miss Sunshine would become a badass cop” _, Ralph had commented on the phone a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t know the half of it.

Iris crouched down to be at eye level with Scudder.

“Oh? But I’m _ not _ part of the investigation team of Snart’s murder, in fact I don’t even serve in district five anymore,” she informed Mirror Master with false cheer. “I’m part of the metahuman fighting unit now… _ SWAT team _.”

“Shit, fuck, _ fuck _!” Scudder cursed, and started to shake out in fear.

Barry felt uncomfortable seeing the other meta-human tremble like that, because that was most definitely what all the _ non-criminal _ metahumans experienced whenever they saw Iris’ team burst through their doors.

“Who. Asked You. To Kill. Snart?” Sergeant West asked again, more slowly this time.

“Silvertongue!” the thief answered right away this time.

Huh?

“Holy Moly,” Cisco breathed out, “Goldface’s _ right hand _ is planning on kicking the king off his throne?”

“How?” Iris asked Scudder. “He’s a regular human, isn’t he? How did he even convince you, a _ meta-human _, to—”

Upon seeing Iris tense up, Barry instinctively slowed down time, and his eyes widen in shock and then his blood boiled in _ fury _ when he saw that Scudder had grabbed a long shard of broken mirror, and was about to stab Iris with it.

The Flash disarmed Mirror Master and slammed him against the frame of a broken mirror.

“Answer her question or _ die _,” he warned Scudder, making his eyes glow red.

“Wait, wait, _ Flash _ ,” the burglar pleaded. “Yes, Silvertongue wants to dethrone the king and the queen of crime, but not to sit on the throne _ himself _ ! He just wants a change in leadership! And who better than you, _ the dark speedster _, to replace Goldface as the king of crime, right?”

“Come again?” Barry reacted, shocked by the proposition.

“Kenyon and Black don’t care about the rest of us metas,” Scudder informed him. “In fact, the few of us who make it in their inner circles are forced to wear _ power-dampening _ bracelets. But _ you _, you’re taking care of the masses! I hear your name whispered about everywhere…Yeah, okay, most are scared shitless of you, but they know that as long as they don’t piss you off you’ll have their backs against the police and all the bigots in this city who want to intern us for life! Silvertongue shows proper respect to meta-humans, his high school sweetheart is a meta herself, so I’m sure that he’ll be cool with you taking the crown—”

“Is that enough for you?” Barry asked as he turned around to look at both Iris and Cisco, who frankly were offending him with the looks on their faces, which suggested that they believed he was buying any of Mirror Master’s flattery.

“Yeah, I can dump him to the station and have Detective Drake make him confess on the record," Iris confirmed. "Also, Silvertongue's movements are more traceable than Goldface's. It will still take a while to get him since he’s highly mobile, and I’ll have to stay out of my father’s radar and even Captain Taylor’s in district four…But I’ll manage.” 

“Quantum?” The Flash asked his friend.

“I don’t know, man,” the breacher answered hesitantly. “The criminal world is more your and Black Bison's area of expertise. Maybe we can ask for Brainstorm’s help to figure out whose IP address to hack, but we’ll have to find the right places to screen…”

“No need, I can share all the info you need!” Scudder promised. “Just give me time to—”

The burglar yelped then went fully silent after Barry knocked him unconscious with a heavy charge of electricity.

“Err…he’s not dead, is he?” Cisco asked right away, while Iris cursed inaudibly.

“Why would I kill a _ meta _ who’s no threat to me?” Barry asked as he threw his hands in the air, letting Scudder’s body drop like a dirty rag.

“You looked _ very close _ to killing him every time he was insulting her,” the breacher argued.

“‘Her’ can hear you,” Iris reminded him sharply as she speed walked to check Scudder’s pulse. "Seriously, Allen! How am I going to explain all his injuries?"

"By telling the truth: he fell on a floor full of broken pieces of glass!" Barry replied flippantly. 

The cop glared at him before checking on Dillon next, who was still unconscious but looked less pale than when Iris had knocked her down.

Then Sergeant West took out her phone and called for backup.

"You _ so _ owe me a date," The Flash asserted, pointing a finger at her before he sped away.

He didn't check if Cisco followed right behind, but was sure that he did since the breacher didn't seem to like Iris anyways.

**Five months later**

"What the hell are you doing here?" Barry heard as he sipped on his iced tea while scanning through ridiculous budget proposals for the biological sciences department.

Cisco had actually made him a trustee of Ramon Industries, and Barry was slowly but surely rebuilding his normal life. 

That morning, he'd decided to get his work done in the coffee shop he would occasionally study at back in high school, which was coincidentally only a few blocks away from Iris' station.

(That was obviously not a coincidence. Half of CC High hung out at Jitters because the homecoming queen did, and she went there to wait for her dad.)

"Good morning, Sergeant West," he greeted when he saw her dressed in her formal CCPD uniform, holding a carry out tray of smoothies. "What's the occasion?"

She scowled furiously then made to walk away, and Barry's hand acted on its own, grabbing her arm.

"Sorry," he apologized right away, but didn't let her go. "I've missed you."

"You've been on my mind too, actually," she replied as she turned around, her facial expression unreadable.

"Really?" He asked, hopeful.

Iris had refused his help to track Silvertongue. In fact, she had forbidden him to hand her yet another criminal on a silver platter because she claimed that it was demeaning her competence as a cop. 

So the dark speedster hadn't seen much of her…Officially.

In actuality, he had a glimpse of her quite often. She'd become the liaison officer between CCPD and Ramon Industries, which had taken over Palmer's Tech's market in Central City. So Cisco talked to Iris quite frequently, coordinating schedules for pre-testing and testing sessions for new stun guns, tasers and meta-cuffs.

Barry's own best friend was a shameless _ traitor _ , but Barry couldn't be too mad about it because a glimpse of Iris was better than _ nothing _ at all. At times the cop even spared him a polite greeting when they saw each other on the R.I. campus.

"Have you heard of the district three massacre?" Iris presently asked Barry.

Yes, he'd heard of it: six cops had been brutally killed while pursuing a mundane weapon trafficker in district three. The cops had shot a lot of thugs, but the criminal had retaliated, using some special weapon that had made huge holes in the officers' chests.

"Yeah, I heard," the speedster answered.

"I was thinking that the last time we lost that many cops at once, _ you were _ the one who killed them," Sergeant West stated before the withdrew her arm from his slack hold. “The only reason I haven't arrested you is because—"

"Larson was cashing in on the profit of a meta-human pimp who gave nightmares to people he touched; Collins shot a kid who can change into a grown woman, I'm guessing he'd slept with him; Chyre and Payne used to be McMillan's go-to goons, they gunned down a dozen of people over the years, some not even metas, pretending that they'd been hostile when really they were peaceful protesters of the gentrification project that McMillan was using to launder his money," Barry informed her in one go.

He reveled in the appalled disgust she displayed upon hearing her colleague's crimes. 

Who was the villain now, huh?

"You could've reported them to the FBI," Iris argued flatly.

"Yes, because I could trust the feds not to be aware of what had been going on for _ years _" he drawled. "I didn't trust _ any _ cop back then. I only trust _ you_."

"Cut the crap, Allen," Sergeant West hissed before she placed the carry out drinks on his table, and slipped onto the seat in front of him.

"You don't trust me as a cop," she claimed angrily, though she was keeping her voice down. "And why would you trust me at all? You don't even know me! You're acting on feelings you had for me when we were _ teenagers_. I'm not the girl who won the homecoming queen election any more than you are the National Science Bowl champion…"

"You remember that?" Barry asked, pleasantly surprised.

"We've both changed," she insisted. "It's been _ eight years_, Barry, but you act like you and I should be friends on account of sharing a full mark on our AP chemistry class. I'm grateful that you remember me fondly enough to have spared my life, believe me, but I'm uncomfortable with this obsession you have for the old me."

"Let's pretend that I haven't expressed my admiration for your integrity as a cop before," Barry suggested evenly, hiding his frustration. "You're not giving me the chance to get to know you better, Iris. I've asked for dates, and you've rejected my requests."

"I guess we'll have to pretend that I don’t have any reason to hate your guts, too," the SWAT officer declared as she stood from her seat and grabbed the carry out tray. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have _ funerals _ to attend. It seems that you've inspired regular criminals to slaughter the police rather than run away from us. Good talk, Allen."

It _ wasn't _ a good talk, and Barry rushed to pack up and discard his cup (at regular speed) to catch up with Iris, but by the time he made it outside, she was nowhere to be found. 

Which was as well, because if his attention had been on Iris, he wouldn't have seen that object free falling from the sky five minutes later. It was a contraption made of some dark but iridescent metallic hull, and it crashed in the middle of the River-Front Park. 

Cisco called Barry right after the impact made the earth shake, a minute before combat aircraft in the air and tanks on the ground arrived on scene.

Wasn't that a bit _ fast _ , even for the efficient military?  
  


* * *

"How?" Iris felt obligated to ask.

"To be quite frank, I don't know myself," Major Thawne answered—no, he was a colonel now, he had a new pin.

"All I can tell you is that I owe my complete recovery to General Eiling. And if you do your duty, West, he will reward you too."

"My duty is to _ protect _ the people of Central City," the cop bit out, ignoring the multiple rifles pointed in her direction. "Humans _ and _ meta-humans. I won't let a corrupt general exploit any of them on my watch."

"Would you rather let aliens invade the whole planet?" Thawne asked her.

Iris blinked.

Surely, she'd heard wrong.

"Sorry, what?" she whispered hesitantly.

"Colonel, words from the USAF: the UFO has entered the atmosphere!" Someone at the front of the tank reported loudly.

_ Aliens. UFO _.

Was this some weird dream? That would also explain seeing Barry Allen casually sipping a cold drink at Jitters.

"Time is critical, Sergeant," Eddie Thawne declared, "so I'll respectfully ask you to be honest with me: do you know where to find The Flash and the rest of the Godai? Spivot told me that you know everything. She told me, _ not _ Eiling, so she kept her promise."

"Well, I don't know _ everything _," Iris countered. "I don't know what you want to do to these five particular meta-humans!"

"We wanted to train them!" The colonel explained. "We wanted to prepare them for this alien invasion! It's too late for that now, but if the other four are as powerful as The Flash, then humanity might still have a chance! So where are they, West?"

"For me to even take your question seriously, I'd have to believe that there are aliens who want to invade—"

The cop grunted along with the other passengers as a brief earthquake made them lurch in their seats.

"The UFO crashed at the park by the waterfront, Colonel!" That same messenger informed Thawne a minute or so later.

"You don't believe me?" The SFO leader asked the MFU-SWAT before he opened the hatch of the armored vehicle. "See for yourself."

The smoke and dust hit Iris' nose first, then the screams of civilians competed with the sound of military aircraft hovering overhead.

Then she saw the huge, _ definitely alien _ contraption that had deforested most of the River-Front Park. 

When large, naked bipedal creatures emerged from the crashed UFO, Iris dropped back inside the tank and lifted her hands in surrender.

"There's a phone in my right shoe," she confessed to Thawne. "I can contact the Godai right now."

"Do it," the soldier allowed with a curt nod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter to go before we close the Eiling subplot! Then it will be the Silvertongue/Goldface subplot, plus a subplot that I’ve only hinted at here and there, but it should be very obvious in the next chapter (hopefully posted on Saturday).  
The slow burn is coming to an end!


	13. You Could Beat The War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why Barry hates Hartley part 1; another reason why Iris is fighting her attraction for Barry; ALIENS part 2; Remember Waller and her special prisoners? WestAllen laughing together after a big scare!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is (hopefully) the longest of this whole fic, because I couldn't find a good place to cut it. It reads pretty fast once you get past the flashbacks, I promise! The "2015" flashback chronologically follows chapter 9, after Iris left Ramon Industries.
> 
> *the Earth 572 meta-human codenames that I changed from canon: Quantum=Vibe, Inferno=Firestorm, Crystal=Killer Frost, Red Earth=Black Bison, Mitos=Multiplex, Wink=Peekaboo, Striker= The Fiddler, Play Doh= Elongated Man, Auris=Pied Piper (auris means 'ear' in latin).
> 
> second chapter title from "Hall Of Fame" by The Script

**2012**

“Wait, _ how _ did the army know about the particle accelerator in the first place?” Barry interrogated his friends, his anger still simmering on the surface, but his curiosity taking over. “If even _ I _ didn't know, and I paid for your failed secret project literally _ and _ figuratively, how come _ they _ did?”

Ronnie and Caitlin eyed Cisco, whose tight jaw still didn’t seem ready to loosen up.

Fortunately, Rathaway had always been a forthcoming bastard.

“They read Dr. Morgan and Dr. Harrison’s thesis, of course,” the billionaire’s son let him know. “Really, we’re lucky that they left town before you launched the damn thing despite my warning _ not to _,” he then addressed the leader of the corporate lab.

“You had _no_ _evidence_ that something was wrong!” Cisco argued. “Why would I question the work of two-hundred brilliant minds, _mine included_, to satisfy your_ ego_?”

“I don’t think that _ my _ ego is the one being criticized here,” Rathaway replied with an eye roll. “Anyways, great talk, but I have a flight to catch.”

“Where do you think you are you going?” Barry questioned, anger flaring back up. “We _ need _ you! With your powers, we can find all the others who’ve been affected—”

“You’re cute, Allen, literally _ and _ figuratively, but _ no thank you _ ,” Hartley refused. “I was _ against _ the launch of the particle accelerator, so I’m in no shape and form responsible for the consequences of its explosion. You can’t guilt-trip me into helping commoners and low IQ individuals any more than my mother can convince me to volunteer at food shelters. I’m out.”

“Where are you going?” Caitlin asked this time, sounding sad.

That’s all she was lately, _ sad _ . Barry understood _ why _ she was sad, he was sad _ too _ , for her but also for the dozen other lives that had been lost because of Cisco’s mistake…Which was why they needed to _ fix this _.

“To Star City,” Rathaway answered. “I didn’t want to go see Ray while the military were watching our every move—”

“The military are _ always _ watching,” Ronnie reminded the group. "Just because that specific group left doesn't mean that they won't keep tabs on us."

“Which is why we need to act _ normal _, so as not to attract their attention,” Cisco argued as he glared at Barry, who was wearing his suit. “Don’t you have a job to be hired for? When are you expecting an answer from Mercury?”

“I haven’t applied to Mercury. I haven't applied _ anywhere _ since CCPD rejected my application,” Barry confessed. 

He’d been so ashamed to tell his so-called _ friends _ that he'd been obsessing over his rejection, but he hadn’t expected his confession to feel like a little white lie compared to yet another secret from Cisco.

“I’m so sorry, man,” the engineer replied sincerely. “You know that you have a spot here. All of our offices should be fully restored next week…”

“We could’ve used that money to _ help people _,” the speedster said, but Caitlin shook her head.

“I know where you’re coming from, Barry, believe me, but even the money it would take to repair the entire building wouldn’t be enough to even fund the research necessary to come up with ways to cure all these people.”

“It’s not a _ disease _, Cait, how many times will we go over this?” Ronnie chided her softly.

“Then why did it _ kill our child _!” she talked back before walking out of the room, her husband on her heels.

“Barry, please, stay with us. Let’s rebuild the company together,” Cisco proposed. “What’s done is done, all we can do now is move forward with a positive attitude—”

“Positive attitude,” Hartley repeated as he looked Barry up and down. “You used to embody the term, Allen. What happened to you? A little superpower got to your head?”

“If you’re not going to help, _ leave _!” the speedster shouted, and he almost gasped when his lightning flooded his vision.

Had that…Had that made his eyes _ glow _? It was kind of cool, but the yellow light had almost blinded him. 

“Guess you can boast that you’re still hot as hell even as an emo,” Rathaway joked before he turned around to exit the conference room, throwing a peace sign in the air before stepping past the sliding door.

“Don’t listen to him, Barry, your black suit is cool,” Cisco tried to pacify him, but Barry didn’t feel pacified, quite the contrary.

“The way _ you _ didn’t listen to him when he _ warned _ you about the particle accelerator?” he talked back before gripping his hair with both hands. “Cisco, Ronnie is right, the military _ will _ return, and what will stop them from _ kidnapping _ people like us to conduct some freak experiments? _ We _ are able to ‘act normal,’ but what about the ones who _ can’t _ hide their powers, huh?”

“Barry,” the engineer sighed. “We need to focus on ourselves first. We can’t help anyone if we’re broke, can we?”

“Right,” the speedster agreed, his shoulders dropping as the fight left him.

But then an idea came to him.

He was fast enough that he could go around without being seen. What if he just _ took _ the money that they needed to rebuild? He’ll make sure to give it back…

Or_ not _. There were plenty of businesses in Central City who wouldn’t go bankrupt if they lost a few thousand dollars here and there.

This was not exactly what he had in mind when he’d first designed his suit, but he had to achieve his ultimate goal, helping the other meta-humans in Central City, by any means necessary.

  
  


**2015**

"She's gone," Barry announced as soon as he sped into the infirmary, unsurprised to see the whole team there.

After the secret break room, Caitlin's workplace was the second most frequented spot for Team Flash. Most employees preferred to go to the smaller clinics dispersed on the upper levels. Only those who were really sick or had some unfortunate work-related accident needed to be seen by Dr. Snow. All Caitlin had to do was give some extra break time to her team, and the whole floor turned into a private meeting place for the meta-humans.

"You think that she will come back with a warrant?" Cisco asked when he briefly stopped chewing on his nails.

Barry sped out of the room and returned with a bag of strawberry twizzlers that he tossed at his friend and informal boss.

"Thanks, man," the CEO sighed seconds before biting one sugary string. "So, will she?"

"She wouldn't have come today without a warrant if she could've secured one in the first place," Barry speculated. "I doubt that she can do anything legal with classified military intel pilfered from who knows where."

As he said the words, he extended his hand, holding the flash drive.

Cisco put the rest of the twizzlers bag on a nearby bed, and grabbed the storage device before rushing to Caitlin's desktop, one twizzler still hanging from his mouth.

"Oof, there's _ a lot _ here," the hacker announced between his teeth as the rest of the team plus Melinda gathered around him. "Kudos to Sergeant West for, one: keeping the information secure on this puny flash drive, 'cause without some programming wizard the data would've been erased within minutes after she plugged it into any unauthorized device; and two: for sifting through all this scientific jargon, and fucking _ Japanese _ ? Dude, she's not _ just _ a pretty face. Your seventeen years old self was totally right to crush on her."

"His almost twenty-six years old self is _ still _ crushing on her," Ronnie uselessly pointed out.

"Oh, you know Iris from school?" Melinda asked. "I can't imagine either of you as students…Though neither of you look much older than college freshmen. You look younger than your age too, Mr. Ramon. No offense.

"Offense _ totally _ taken because that's the lame reason why Cynthia Reynolds won't give me the time of the day," the businessman replied half-jokingly, half-bitterly.

"Who's Cynthia Reynolds?" Barry asked Caitlin in a whisper, though Cisco could probably hear him too.

"The daughter and secretary of Joshua Reynolds, CEO of 'Earth-19', the home and software security company."

"The former hacker known as Breacher, right?" Barry asked Cisco. "I remember hearing about his turnover back in high school. Didn't know that he had a daughter. She's an IT genius too?"

"Better, she's a _ hot _ IT genius too," the engineer specified as he kept typing away on the keyboard of Caitlin's computer. "She's barely two years older than me, but my 'baby face' exaggerates the age gap or whatever. We are meant to be together, she just doesn't want to admit it."

Barry chuckled, amused to learn that his best friend was basically in the same romantic situation as him: infatuated with a woman who was finding excuses not to return his feelings.

(Although Barry wasn't certain that Iris had any feelings for him; what he was certain of was that she was _ physically attracted _ to him.)

"Good news: except for Barry, the army doesn't have much on us," Cisco announced when he stopped exploring the data that Iris had shared. "All they have about Ronnie and Caitlin are blurry cell phone videos and some telemetric readings to confirm that the fire and ice aren't natural. There's not even a trace of Mina or myself here."

"What's the bad news?" Ronnie questioned cautiously.

"There are two of them. The first one is that there's no doubt that _ we are _ the Godai," the hacker claimed with a frown. "Freaking Buddhists from feudal Japan profiled us across millennia? What the fuck?"

"Or our personalities match those of typical Buddhist monks," Mina offered with a shrug. "Or samurai, or ninjas…Eh. That's kinda cool."

"I still don’t buy it,” Barry admitted with a frown. “What does it say about the character of the wind?" 

He _ knew _ how he was: impulsive, violent, unrepentant…So he _ didn’t _ feel bad about it, but that didn't seem like personality traits Buddhism would recommend for its believers.

"Fū, or Kaze, the wind warrior, is the most versatile and possibly the most powerful of the Godai," Cisco read out loud after pulling out a text file. "Fū enjoys freedom of movement, but also the freedom of mental growth, as unlike the other warriors, societal barriers and personal limitations do not stop him or her from achieving goals that appear unattainable. Fū also benefits from emotional open-mindedness, though without an emotional anchor for his or her heart Fū's spirit could spiral out of control and into the darkness. This anchor could be the only way to reach the ever elusive and evasive warrior, whose benevolence, compassion and wisdom takes him or her wherever Fū feels the most needed."

An uncomfortable silence settled in the not completely quiet room—different machines were beeping at regular intervals—before Barry spoke up.

"That doesn't sound like _ me _ ," he denied. "'Open-mindedness…benevolence, compassion and wisdom'? I don't embody _ any _ of these traits. I'm one of the most wanted criminals in this city! I've _ killed _ people!"

"You've killed mostly to _ protect others _," Melinda was the first one to argue. "Because you're compassionate towards other meta-humans, and I'll argue towards regular humans too. You haven't harmed any innocent."

"If you'd stayed in the break room a few minutes longer," Barry replied, "then you'd have heard Iris pointing out that I killed her team leader, who was no immediate threat to me."

"He wouldn't leave the warehouse!" Mina pointed out. "I had to intervene when his subordinate almost shot you _ in the back _. Back then I was surprised that Iris West herself didn't take you down. She had the best chance to shoot you, more than once!"

"You actually didn't need to help Barry, Mina," Caitlin chimed in. "After being shot multiple times with stun guns, the old and new version, he's almost immune to the charges. Worst case scenario, according to my tests, is that his powers would be suppressed for up to three minutes, but he wouldn't even fall unconscious."

"Why am I hearing this only _ now _?" Barry questioned his friend. 

"Because you don't need any more reason to be _ reckless _," the doctor answered sternly.

"Heard that? 'Reckless'! That's what I am, reckless, not _ wise _!" The speedster reopened the debate about his personality. 

"You're not actually reckless, Barry," Ronnie defended, earning a glare from his wife. "You are aware of the consequences of your actions, and act appropriately. You sacrificed your personal life and identity so that your crimes wouldn't be traced back to us. The money you stole was used to rebuild the company, so that we could pay everyone and be able to help meta-humans. You're threatening the mayor to keep the public from going widely hostile against meta-humans. You're trying to establish an alliance with Sergeant West despite your hatred for the police because she could be helpful to our endeavor…"

"Well, it's not like he could hate his _ emotional anchor, _ am I right?" Cisco cut off the structural engineer, making his eyebrows rise and fall a few times in that annoying way of his. "That has to be why Sergeant West didn't share your profile earlier, Barry: she knows that she's destined to be a significant part of your life."

"She's free _ not to be _ ," Caitlin argued. "At the risk of seeing you 'spiral out of control and into the darkness,' granted, but she has a _ choice _."

Barry didn't know that he liked that choice, or that he liked the fact that Iris might believe herself tied to him by destiny or fate, _ whatever _. 

This Godai thing was a bunch of _ nonsense _ . Barry _ wasn't _ the wind warrior. The army had the wrong guy. There was no such thing as prophecy in the first place.

"That also explains the SFO trying everything in their power to use her against you," Cisco pointed out. "Because she's the only way to reach you."

"I don't care what Eiling and his goons _ think _ they know about me," The Flash asserted determinedly. "And I sustain that I'm not this wind warrior. I'm not some Buddhist ideal…"

"No one said that the Godai are _ perfect _ people," Ronnie pointed out. "Nowhere does it call _ any of us _ ‘'pure' or 'flawless'. Those qualities aren't necessary to _ warriors _ . Remember who was adopting the religion when this was written: _ men _ from _ feudal Japan _ . Even the pious monks who wrote the scrolls weren't meek pacifists, right? They were masters in deadly martial arts. So you being a killer doesn't disqualify you from the list. In fact, I'm pretty sure that warriors are _ supposed _ to kill people."

"Come on Barry, protecting the innocent meta-humans of this city was _ your _ idea," Cisco added. "You and Mina have been fighting for something greater than yourself for years. You deserve to be on that list of chosen ones. I don't know how _ I _ made the cut."

"Carrying on the legacy of the greatest scientists our city has known is no small feat, Cisco," Ronnie defended right before turning to Caitlin. "And your vocation as a doctor and bioengineer? You work for the _ betterment of human health _ every damn day."

"Go on," Dr. Snow encouraged her husband with a kind smile and a gentle hand on his chest when he stopped talking after that. "Don't sing _ our _ praises then play modest about _ yourself _."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Ronnie played coy.

"Yeah, right!" Mina actually jumped in. "Cisco must have recounted _ a hundred times _ how you sacrificed yourself to lock the pipeline from the inside so that the explosion would be contained!"

"I want us all to be able to tell the story from memory to our grandkids, okay?" Cisco justified himself, and the whole group laughed in good fun.

"The other bad news," he resumed after everyone got quiet again, "is that we don't know what Eiling wants with us. It can't be to experiment on us, right? He already knew what kind of powers he wanted us to have. Then what the hell is he looking for?"

"We'll figure it out," Barry promised. "_ Together _."

**Six months later**

"Couldn't you just tell us that you wanted us to protect the planet from _ freaking aliens _?!" Quantum* questioned Eddie Thawne after he was done evacuating the latest wounded soldiers, police and national guard officers.

Barry and Cisco had evacuated the civilians hours ago, when it was still bright outside.

No, they hadn't been fighting creatures from another galaxy the whole day, but the alien spacecraft had created a huge black cloud of smoke that had reduced visibility—human visibility, that is. Until Central City had plunged into semi-darkness, the aliens had seemed disorganized, but since the sunlight had been blocked they were ferocious and efficient.

"I agree that we could've better prepared for this," Inferno said as he landed nearby after creating a wall of fire around the largest group of invaders that had managed to break through Crystal's wall of ice surrounding their spacecraft. 

"I'm already getting tired, and these guys seem to have barely started," the fire meta pointed out. "A few years of training _ might _ have bumped up my endurance."

"Would you have believed us and followed us willingly if we'd told you about an alien invasion?" Thawne asked back.

"Hell no," Barry admitted with a glare in the soldier's direction after sending a few dozens of aliens fly. "I wouldn't follow you willingly even _ now _ , because I know that you're holding Iris _ hostage _!"

Iris had called him, informing him that the army was requesting the Godai's help to protect the city and the rest of the world from _ aliens_.

Yet, when Barry and his friends had arrived at the waterfront, Eddie Thawne—who looked like he never had his spine broken in the first place—had welcomed them _ without _ Iris. 

"You free my daughter this moment, you hear me Colonel?" Joe West demanded as he approached menacingly, his already imposing figure in the MFU-SWAT gear enhanced by the alien blood (if that goey, gelatinous liquid was indeed their life substance) splattered all over his boots and half of his vest.

"No can do, Captain, sorry," Blondie refused, his tone not a bit apologetic. "She's our insurance policy against The Flash. We all know who he'll direct his violence towards after the last of the aliens is dead."

"Does it look like the battle is _ anywhere _ near being over?" One of Iris' teammates asked rhetorically right behind Barry. 

He had to be the new leader, because his aim was scarily accurate and deadly.

"We could use India's help right now!” the man said even as he took down five aliens in a row. “She's one of our best marksmen!"

"Yet you won't let her _ run point _ during missions," another SWAT officer, that Garcia guy, mumbled loudly enough for only Barry and a few of his teammates to hear.

"No, I don't want _ my daughter _ anywhere near this carnage!" Joe West objected to his CCPD colleague, and actually he seemed to be the leader of the SWAT right now? It made sense, he was the Captain of the entire MFU department.

Iris' dad addressed Thawne again: "Free Iris and have that guy with the funny glasses send her wherever you evacuated the civilians!"

"The name is _ Quantum_, for future references," Cisco quipped. "I want it engraved on my medal of honor and courage, and no paparazzi allowed at the decoration ceremony!"

Right after delivering his joke—he was possibly serious about the medal, Barry couldn't tell for sure—the breacher opened a portal, and went through it, Crystal and Inferno following him. They were probably going to Mina's location behind the spaceship, her animate figurines visible from where Barry was standing.

The Godai weren't the only meta-humans helping the armed forces battle the aliens: Mitos and his clones, Wink, Striker, Play Doh (seriously, Ralph? What a dumb codename!) and even Auris* were leading the meta-humans who had answered The Flash's call to protect the city.

Hartley had even brought the cavalry: his beau Ray Palmer and other great fighters with cool gadgets from Star City had joined the fray. One of them was the famous Green Arrow, an extraordinary archer who served as Star City's main vigilante. 

There were even metas among the police: from district five were Detective Dinah Drake, who emitted a supersonic scream; and a former teammate of Iris', Kendra Saunders, had super strength and could fly—she had _ legitimate wings_.

Possibly the coolest part of this unfortunate event was the arrival of Superman from Metropolis. Superman was himself an alien, thankfully a friendly one, so his endurance wasn’t a source of concern. 

What was worrisome was that the dark cloud prevented the Man of Steel from going all out. He had to fly up past the dark mass now and then to recharge.

‘Recharging’ was about to be a huge problem if the battle didn't end soon, and frankly Barry didn't see it happen: the aliens came out in waves, and there was no indication that all of them had joined the fight yet. For all Barry knew, there was an interdimensional portal inside their spaceship that allowed the aliens to go through directly from their homeworld or something.

Alright, that was definitely _ too sci-fi _ even for the situation, but Barry knew that they needed a new strategy if they wanted to win this war.

Barry himself could figure something out…It’s just that he couldn't _ think _ because _ the woman he loved _ was God knew where in the middle of a possible end of the world scenario.

"Flash!" Joe West called out minutes later, when the speedster was busy knocking down those frustratingly strong creatures.

"What's wrong?" Barry asked, half worried that Iris' father had been seriously hit.

"Here," the cop shoved an electronic pad in his hands. "I got it from one of Thawne's men. I have no idea how to use these fancy gadgets, but you do, right?"

"Yeah," the speedster answered before going in flash time to figure out what the device was used for.

"It's a tracker, but it only locates a few people," he informed Captain West. "General Eiling and the president in the Brown House, some individual codenamed 'The Wall' a few miles from here, who’s in the same location as whoever ‘YM’ is…Wait! There’s also someone labeled ‘IAW’ in that place. Iris’ middle name is Ann, right? Iris Ann West.”

Joe West nodded, his eyes widening with hope before they narrowed down on Barry.

“If you get my baby girl to safety, I promise not to try to shoot you the next time I see you,” the older cop told him.

“I’ll hold you onto that promise, sir,” the speedster replied with a grin before speeding away.

It was a good thing that Barry could phase through solid matter, because he couldn’t find an entrance to the secret compound right outside the city.

He first sped through the place to assess the number of armed soldiers in the building and was relieved to see that there were only a few guards. 

Then he reached the level where Iris was supposedly locked up, and was surprised to hear her speaking with some guy. Both of them were in sterile white rooms encased by glass walls, their cells brightly lit whereas the observation room was in the darkness. 

It didn’t seem like the two prisoners could see each other, nor could they see Barry.

“A police officer, huh? Fascinating,” the man was saying.

Barry was startled by the fact that, not only was the stranger clearly a meta-human as the thick meta-cuffs indicated, but he could possibly be a _ speedster _ as well. His suit looked just like Barry’s, only it was a flashy yellow color with some red highlights. Even the cowl was the same, and he also had the lightning bolt symbols on his costume—seriously though, what with the colors?

“What? Are women not allowed to be cops in the future?” Iris drawled.

Future? That man was from the _ future _?

It confirmed that the man in the yellow suit was a speedster. Barry, Cisco and Ronnie had once calculated that with enough speed Barry could travel through time. The Flash knew that he'd become fast enough to do it ever since his lightning had turned red, but he knew better than to mess around with the space-time continuum. Clearly that other speedster didn’t have such misgivings.

“Oh, women can be anything they want in the future,” the man in yellow assured (ah, YM stood for Yellow Man!). “It’s just that, the way you were asking questions…I thought that you were a journalist,” he added with a knowing smirk that Iris couldn’t see, but _ Barry _ could.

Something was fishy about this man.

Exactly _ how far _in the future was he from?

“My best friend is a journalist,” Iris revealed, and Barry would’ve rolled his eyes at how she could so easily divulge personal information to a complete stranger but wouldn’t have a civil conversation with him.

Instead, Barry’s eyes widened in shock when he saw the man from the future tilt his head in reflection before mouthing the name ‘Linda Park’.

What the hell?

“Any family? I miss my family,” The older speedster prompted, and it disturbed The Flash to hear his voice sound so sincere while the man himself had a poker face.

Who the fuck was this guy?

“My parents and my younger brother, who’s thankfully all the way in Europe because he’s a brat,” Iris revealed with so much fondness that Barry felt the sudden urge to meet the brother in question.

“Parents, _ plural _? Both of them are alive? That’s very nice,” the man in yellow said, the cheer in his voice in total conflict with the shock on his face.

“Sometimes I selfishly wish that my mother had stayed in Europe with my brother,” the cop admitted with a shrug, and she looked so young and carefree sitting on that tile floor, her arms loosely wrapped around her knees.

“Really? Why’s that?” The other speedster immediately asked, then must have realized how invasive the question was because he followed up with “I’m sorry, I don’t get much human interaction here, I’ve lost the habit of using social filters!”

“It’s alright,” Iris reassured him with a sympathetic smile. “And it’s awful that they’ve been keeping you in isolation like that for so long, caged like an animal.”

Barry knew that he should just get Iris out of her glass cage, that he shouldn’t let that shady man learn so much about her…But this was the first time that he’d seen her so unguarded, so genuine. She wasn’t sneering or scowling or rolling her eyes in annoyance. She was _ smiling _ and trying to comfort another soul.

Iris had accused Barry of projecting his love for her teenage self on her current self, and yes he was partially guilty of that, but that was because the first time they’d reunited he’d _ felt _ her sunny disposition hiding right underneath the ‘tough cop’ armor.

And there she was, CC High’s homecoming queen, Miss Sunshine, radiating warmth with a smile that wasn’t even meant for Barry. So forgive the dark speedster for trying to soak up as much sunlight as he could. It was cloudy outside.

Fuck. _ The alien invasion! _

“My mother is too observant for her own good, and for mine,” Iris’ words stopped The Flash in his tracks just as he was about to speak up.

“Mothers often are,” the man from the future commented softly.

“She wasn’t even present when I was growing up,” Sergeant West admitted, her tone bitter, “but it seemed that the phone and video calls were enough for her to figure me out. She saw me for thirty seconds with this guy and could tell that something was going on between us. I don’t know what he and I are to each other, the prophecy that landed me here? He's part of it, it’s beyond complicated—”

“Ah, the _ love interest _,” the man in yellow teased. “I was wondering if a career-oriented woman like you had the patience for romance in this time period.”

“Maybe in another life, Barry and I—oh _ wow _, that slipped out too easily, didn’t it?” Iris said with a giggle.

But the other prisoner wasn’t sharing her light mood. His face, which had only shown surprise or neutrality so far, had immediately gone dark at the utterance of Barry’s name.

“You're talking about _ Barry Allen _ ?” the man in yellow shouted as he abruptly looked around, and only then did Barry realize that they were communicating through the _ coms _, not across the walls.

That meant that _ someone else _ was watching…

A chuckle resonated right behind the speedster, so quiet that Barry would’ve missed it if he hadn’t been so alert.

But he _ was _ alert, so he turned around and saw a stout black woman with cropped hair, wearing a dark blue suit jacket and skirt, a no-nonsense air about her that made the speedster want to grab Iris and just leave and never look back.

“They can’t hear us, but I’d very much like to hear what that speedster has to say, don’t you, Mr. Allen?” the woman said in a low, raspy voice, and despite her semi-teasing tone Barry knew that she meant business.

“_ Barry Allen _ is the reason you're here? _ He's _ the wind warrior?” the man in yellow asked after standing up.

_ Holy shit _.

Iris hadn’t told him Barry’s last name, she hadn’t said anything about the Godai, had only said the word 'prophecy'.

"Uh…Yeah?" Iris answered, her shock appearing belatedly on her face after she provided the piece of information.

“No! NOOO!” The other speedster screamed on top of his lungs, rightfully scaring the shit out of Iris.

“You know Barry?” She questioned him. “How? You said that you were from the twenty-second century! Who are…Hey!”

The lights in Iris’ cell had gone out, switched off by the mysterious woman—‘The Wall’, that’s who she was. Barry had stopped paying attention to the tracker and hadn’t seen her move from the upper levels of the building. She had likely entered the room via the door behind him.

“I caught this speedster in Central City in 2010, and back then I thought that _ he _ was the wind warrior,” The Wall calmly told Barry, her quiet voice contrasting with the raging noises the man from the future was making.

“When I asked him if he was aware of the Godai prophecy, he told me that I had the wrong guy and the wrong timeline. I didn’t understand what he meant by that, even after I found out that he was a time traveler. Shouldn’t he have said 'the wrong year', if he were from the future? Then one of my theoretical physicists tried to explain the ‘many worlds’ theory to me. You’re a scientist, Mr. Allen. A biochemist, but surely as one of Dr. Morgan and Dr. Wells’ protégés you know a thing or two about quantum physics?”

“I do,” Barry answered, finding no reason to be dishonest when his turn to ask questioned came.

“Good, then you do know what the man in yellow meant: that _ this _ timeline was not supposed to have a wind warrior. But how could he know that, I wondered. How could he be so sure? He was trapped here, and I had just assigned General Eiling with the mission to _ create _ the Godai…Because my scientists had assured me that it was possible as long as we convinced Tessa Morgan and Harrison Wells to sell us the patent of their particle accelerator.”

No.

_ NO. _

“It was _ you _ , then?” he asked The Wall, his lightning snapping around him as fury built up inside him. “You _ killed _ Tessa and Harrison? I _ knew _ that their deaths weren’t a true accident!”

If the woman was scared of him, she didn’t show it. Instead she pointed at the man in yellow.

“No, Mr. Allen, we wanted your mentors _ alive and well _ to help us build the particle accelerator. It was _ this man _ from the future who killed them, knowing how instrumental the two scientists were to the creation of that revolutionary piece of technology.”

Barry’s gaze snapped towards the man in yellow. He had stopped screaming, but was now trying to get out of his cuffs.

Was that even possible? Maybe, being from the future, he knew a flaw in the metal bindings that people from the present weren’t yet aware of.

"Then what about my job application to be a CSI at CCPD?" Barry asked the mysterious woman. "I partly wanted to join to have access to multiple cases, the one about my mentors’ accident included. Did you or that guy have anything to do with my application getting rejected?"

"No we did not," she replied straightforwardly. "And this man was locked up here the whole time."

“Hello? Hey!” Iris called out, hitting a palm against one of the glass walls. “Anyone in here?”

The man from the future was still struggling against his cuffs. 

“Why would he kill Dr. Morgan and Dr. Harrison?” Barry wondered out loud. “We are being invaded by _ aliens _ . Surely being from the future means that he _ knew _ that they were needed!”

“I'm not sure,” the older woman admitted. “He’s been more agitated lately, possibly aware that the aliens were coming, though he was a bit surprised when Sergeant West informed him…Wait.”

No sooner had the mysterious woman gone quiet that the man in yellow broke his meta-cuffs, and Barry braced himself for a fight, because whoever that man was, he was clearly an _ enemy _.

“Distract him! Get him _ out of here _!” The Wall advised urgently before the man in yellow phased out of his cell, startling when he saw Barry.

“Hey, there are aliens invading us, care to lend us a hand to beat them?” The dark speedster told the other one, forcing a bit of humor in his voice. “This way!” He added before speeding away.

At first Barry worried that the stranger would stay behind to hurt the big woman or Iris, but then the man in yellow followed him outside, where the sky was still clouded by the alien smoke, and fires had started to spread by the waterfront.

"You're using the Negative Speed Force too," the older man noted in surprise.

"I have no idea what that means, and we have more pressing issues in case you haven't noticed," Barry replied as he pointed at the cloud.

Internally, he was weirded out by the fact that the stranger was so similar to him, with a few exceptions: he had the same red-glowing eyes, the blurred face (the stranger was making his whole body vibrate whereas Barry limited his vibration to his facial muscles) and the menacing vibrating voice—the pitch and enunciation were clearly different from Barry’s, but only those who personally knew him would be able to tell.

“Clearly these aliens are vulnerable to _ UV light _!” the man from the future noted after looking at the sky for a moment. “All you have to do is…Are you listening?”

“Yeah, but feel free to do it yourself,” Barry suggested.

“I’m not from this timeline! Didn’t Amanda Waller tell you?” the older speedster replied. “I can’t end up in history books. So _ you _ go and run all the way into that spaceship and destroy whatever machine is making that smoke. It most definitely will trigger a self-destruct command, but I bet that you brought Supergirl from Earth-38, right? She can throw the whole thing out in space…Into the sun would be best.

“Supergirl? Earth-38?” Barry repeated, confused. “We only have a _ Superman _, actually. If he has a female partner, I've never heard of her.”

The other man from the future stopped vibrating, his blue eyes going comically wide after he took a few seconds to look Barry up and down.

“Of course I landed in the _wrong_ _universe_!” YM exclaimed angrily. "I'm on the wrong damn earth!"

Barry forgot the alien invasion for a moment and tackled the speedster to the ground and started pummeling him with his fists.

"You’re telling me that you killed Dr. Morgan and Dr. Wells _ by mistake? _You bastard!" The Flash growled.

The man in yellow managed to kick him off, then stood back up and spun around to throw lightning at him.

Barry momentarily went into flash time to evade the hit.

"You've already mastered flash time? Impressive," the older speedster complimented with a slow clap. "I guess that I killed the wrong people, thinking that their loss would keep you from becoming a hero. The fact that your lightning is red indicates that I've succeeded in a way, but you still have _ her _ in your life…Since I've already messed up this universe, I might as well finish what I started, don't you think?"

For a crucial second Barry froze when he realized that 'her' referred to _ Iris _.

And that second was all the time the man from the future needed to run back into the compound ahead of him.

By the time Barry got back into the dark room, the other speedster's hand was already deep into Iris' chest, blood soaking into the grey shirt of her uniform.

"No," Barry whispered as he fell to his knees at the same time that the cop's body hit the floor outside of the cells.

"_ Yes _ ," the man from the future replied with a chuckle. "Oh, I can't _ wait _ to see you make that face again. You know, I was disappointed that your parents were already dead when I arrived. Maybe I should kill them when I get back to Earth-1. Your mother, maybe? I'll decide when I get there."

Without so much as a by your leave, the man in the yellow suit sped off.

"Iris, _ Iris _," Barry called out as he crawled towards her body, removing his mask when his tears started blurring his vision in the already dark room.

"Barry?" he heard her voice on his right, and he lifted his head just as the lights in her cell got turned back on.

"What?" the speedster whispered in shock at the sight of Iris looking scared but _ well _ , before he looked to the back of the room to see 'The Wall'— _ Amanda Waller _, the man from the future had called her—staring down at the other Iris, whose appearance changed into that of an unknown man that sighed loudly before he went completely still.

"Oh my God!" Iris exclaimed, then started interrogating the older woman after hitting the glass wall of her cell. "Is he dead? What did you do, Waller? Why was he looking like me _ again _?"

Only then did Barry's brain start working again, and he _ remembered _ that there was a meta-human that Thawne had used to impersonate Iris.

"Yes, Sergeant West, he's dead," Waller answered somberly as she looked back at Iris. "It was him or _ you _, and as useful as a shapeshifter could be to us, I'd rather have the wind warrior's emotional anchor safe and sound."

"Iris is _ not _ my anchor!" Barry denied. "She's not someone you can just _ use _ to get to me!"

"I beg to differ, Mr. Allen," the big woman argued calmly. "Even that man from the future knew how important she is to you, and I'm glad that I caught on that, or your beloved would be—"

She went quiet when she saw the look of pure hatred that Barry gave her, his lightning leaking off of him.

If Thawne hadn't brought Iris to this place, she would've _ never _ been in any danger of being killed by that time traveler. 

Barry looked at the shapeshifter as he stood back up.

Whoever that meta had been, whatever he had done in complicity with the military to frame Iris, he didn't deserve to die _ like that _.

"What was his name?" the speedster asked, startling when he realized that Iris had uttered the exact same words. 

He searched her eyes, and guessed that she was pretty shaken by the brief sight of her own body lying dead on some dark floor.

"Hannibal Bates," Waller answered before she dared remind Barry: "You should be battling aliens right now, Mr. Allen. Don't let all the effort put into making you who you are today go to waste."

"He doesn't owe you _ anything _ !" Iris objected vehemently. "You weren't there for him, or the _ thousands _ of people whose lives you turned upside down by sabotaging the particle accelerator!"

"We would have taken care of the Godai if Francisco Ramon had disclosed the effects of the particle accelerator explosion," Waller defended. "We wanted to train them, to prepare them for this crisis. A crisis that's still ongoing!"

"This isn't over, Waller," Iris promised with a finger pointed at the big woman, who snorted at her, unbothered by the implied threat.

"Barry, hey!" the cop called out with another slap of her hand on the glass to get his attention. "She's right, _ let's go _!"

"No, _ you _ can't leave," Amanda Waller objected.

"Your dad wants me to get you to safety," The Flash informed Iris as he extended his hand towards her, his arm going through the glass.

But Sergeant West took a step back from him, frowning then scowling.

"Either you take me to the battlefield _ or _ you leave me here," she demanded as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I'll figure out a way to get out _ myself _."

"I'd like to see you try," Waller quipped, earning a glare from Barry.

"Alright, we're _ both _ going to kick some alien ass," he agreed with a smile when he turned back to Iris. "Let's go."

He chuckled at her little yelp when he made her whole body vibrate and pulled her over the glass wall.

He tried not to enjoy having her cling to him even after she was out of her cell, but his treacherous free hand landed on her lower back as _ her _ free hand rested on his chest, and he took a slow breath to take in her scent and soft warmth.

"Touching," Waller drawled on the other side of the room. "Don't make me regret letting you go. Win the war."

Barry was about to reply to her angrily, but Iris gently pushed him towards the door after bringing her second hand to his chest.

"Our city needs us _ now _ , Allen. You can run back here later," she reminded him with a determined look. "Jesus, Barry… _ Aliens _."

"Aliens," he confirmed breathlessly, more affected by her proximity than by the dire circumstances.

"Does this place have an armory?" The cop suddenly asked Waller, who nodded then threw a badge at them.

"Take a left to the elevator, third floor, exit to the right," the older woman instructed. "Oh, and Sergeant West? Please deal with this new arms trafficking situation I'm hearing is about to become a problem in your city."

"I don't need you to tell me," Iris mumbled as she used the badge to open the sliding door.

"Hey, we've lost enough time here, come on," Barry pointed out right before lifting her in his arms and speeding her to the armory.

The combat gear that Waller' people wore—they _ weren't _ military, the clothes had no logo—was less bulky than CCPD's, to Iris' delight.

"I'm so keeping this!" She declared excitedly when she exited the locker room five minutes later, covered from head to toe.

"What's our plan?" she asked Barry as she stocked up on ammo and hid a few knives all over her person. "You've been out there for a while, what does it look like?"

"Like an endless number of aliens are trying to swarm our city," the speedster deadpanned. "But that man from the future claimed that destroying the smoke-making machine would help. Then the main problem would be to take the spaceship away from our planet before it self destructs. Superman came to help, he should be able to do it. "

"Better than what I was going to suggest," the cop admitted with a shrug before lifting her arm and wrapping it around Barry's neck.

_ Stay cool, stay cool, stay cool, _ he chanted in his head as he took her in his arms again.

Then he remembered what Iris had told the speedster from the future. 

_ "Maybe in another life, Barry and I…" _

Meaning: definitely not in _ this _ life.

"And what was your plan?" the dark speedster casually asked to hide his rising distress.

"Run around and find the biggest and ugliest among them. It definitely would be their leader," the cop said sheepishly.

Barry couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed so hard. Unfortunately, instead of appreciating Iris following him in this rare moment of levity between them, all he could hear was _ "Maybe, in another life" _echoing in his head.

A weird shout startled them as they were about to leave, then they heard a commotion from around the corner.

"Is that _ Japanese _?" Iris asked as she hopped out of Barry's arms to jog towards the noise.

The Flash sighed, but followed after her just the same.

This was _ the one time _ she was allowing him to stand by her side, so he would savor it until the last bittersweet second.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!!!
> 
> Phew, this subplot is done *wipes sweat off brow*. It spills over a bit to the next chapter, which should be posted along with this one.  
Did you notice how I made Waller talk about all three subplots? No? That's okay.


	14. Do It For Your Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ALIENS final part! Francine's reaction to Barry Allen; West-Allen! West-Allen! West-Allen!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can one ever go wrong with a chapter that's almost all West-Allen?
> 
> Chapter title from "Hall Of Fame" by The Script.

**2015**

“He totally _ plagiarized _Superman’s style,” Garcia noted as he and the rest of the team took one last look at J’onn J’onzz.

That was the name of the alien ‘messenger’ that Waller had sequestrated for five years, ever since he’d come to Earth for the second time hoping to warn humans about another race of aliens, White Martians, who had previously invaded his home planet.

After Barry and Iris had helped J’onzz escape Waller’s people, the alien had helped them deactivate the smoke-making machine in the alien spacecraft, preventing the activation of any self-destruction command—which was convenient for J’onn, as he could then use the spaceship to join the survivors among his people, who had relocated to a faraway planet.

As expected, the invaders had turned weak and sluggish when the sun had returned in the sky, and the seriously epic human (and allies) army had made quick work of the ugly creatures.

J’onn J’onzz was a shapeshifter himself, so halfway through the battle he had adopted a form that looked less like the White Martians and more like the Green Martian he claimed to be.

After seeing Superman’s prowesses, he made himself a cap to go along with his more human-like appearance.

“Golf! India!” Lawton called. “You’re coming or what?”

“I need to find my mother,” Iris warned her teammates as she took off her borrowed helmet (not that she was planning on returning it). “Captain West doesn’t know where she is either, and I’m worried.”

“Alright, go, but check in with me as soon as you make it back to the station,” the new Alpha instructed before walking away.

“I hope that your mother is okay,” Garcia offered before waving goodbye and following the team leader.

Iris was still looking for a functional patrol car in the rubbles when The Flash skidded to a stop next to her.

“Need a ride?” he asked more seriously than she expected, and the cop made sure that no one was looking their way before gratefully accepting his help.

It turned out that Francine West hadn’t left the D.A.’s office even though it was one of the buildings close enough to the waterfront that the police had coordinated its evacuation.

Captain West was going to be _furious_ that district eight had done such a poor job of ushering _all_ civilians to safety.

“Oh my God!” Iris’ mother exclaimed when she saw her, almost dropping her tablet to the floor when she abruptly stood from her chair at her imposing desk.

It took a second for Sergeant West to figure out that her mom was freaked out by the speedster, not by her own daughter.

“Oh, right,” Iris reacted with a sigh before flapping her hand in Barry’s direction. “Mom, Barry Allen, Barry, you already know my mom, Francine West.”

“How do you do, Mrs. West?” The Flash said politely after pulling off his cowl.

Francine gaped at him, most definitely recognizing his face from the charity dinner.

“You’re…I _thought_…Iris Ann West!” the lawyer ended up taking her shock on her daughter. “Are you _ involved _ with the man who’s killed six of your colleagues?”

“What? Mom, _ no _ _!_” the cop answered right away. “That’s what I was trying to make you understand last time! He and I aren’t like _ that _!” 

Thankfully Barry Allen didn’t make any comment—he’d seemed a bit too quiet ever since they’d rescued J’onn J’onzz—and that seemed to embolden Iris’ mom.

“You stay away from my daughter, dark speedster, or I’ll make sure that once you get arrested, I get you sentenced with the _capital punishment!_”

That would be a historical feat, as the death penalty had been banned in the country for over a hundred years, but considering that Barry Allen was a _ meta-human _, Iris was sure that her mother could indeed make a case for an exception.

That was a worrisome thought, and though The Flash deserved to be hated by law enforcers, Iris wasn’t comfortable with her own mother sounding so intolerant, especially because she advocated for the legal protection of meta-humans.

“Thank you, Barry,” she told the speedster with an apologetic smile. “I’m sure that you have a lot to do in the aftermath of this battle.”

“I do,” he confirmed before looking back and forth between the two West women. “I have a request, not for me!” he rushed to add when it looked like Francine had some more threats to deliver.

“Go ahead,” Sergeant West allowed with a cautious nod.

“Two of your colleagues, Dinah Drake and Kendra Saunders, are metas,” Allen informed her, and alright, Iris hadn’t hallucinated seeing Hawkgirl sporting _actual_ wings, good to know.

“They need legal protection,” he pleaded to Francine, “and in case she doesn’t voluntarily step up to the plate, please encourage Assistant District Attorney Cecile Horton to help. She’s…she’s a meta-human too.”

“I won’t need to _ blackmail _ Cecile to help me draft a legal code ensuring full human rights to l_aw-abiding_ meta-humans,” the D.A. pointed out as she crossed her arms over her chest. “She's already _ done it _. And I know that she’s a meta-human, why do you think I’m against the meta-human app being used by anyone but the MFU? It’s only taking this long to get the laws ratified because the final decisions and votes aren’t up to us.”

_ Would you care for metas if your dear friend and estimated colleague wasn’t one of them? _ Iris wondered silently, guessing from Barry’s frown that he was asking himself the same question.

“Alright, thank you,” the speedster said with a curt nod before putting his mask back on. “D.A. West, Sergeant West,” he greeted before speeding away.

The two women stared at the spot he’d vacated for a few uncomfortable seconds.

“He’s so…_ well-mannered _ ,” Francine commented incredulously. “It’s hard to think that he’s the same _ despicable criminal _ who’s been terrorizing the city for almost three years now!”

Iris refrained from pointing out that except from McMillan and police officers, most of whom had been despicable criminals themselves, The Flash hadn’t hurt anyone (Scudder didn’t count). Barry was certainly not actively scaring people in the streets like other meta-human criminals.

**Three Weeks Later**

“Cisco, you don’t need to knock,” Barry chided with a soft chuckle, his eyes on the screen of his computer while he typed up whatever his job at Ramon Industries entailed.

Despite all the discussions Iris had had with Cisco about Barry since the day they’d caught Sam Scudder, she didn’t actually know what the speedster did for a living when he wasn’t wearing his black suit. Something related to biosciences, she guessed.

“I know that Ramon is the boss, but surely he allows his own friends some control over their work space?” the cop asked with a smile after she pressed the button for the door to slide shut behind her.

“Iris,” Barry greeted just as his head snapped in her direction, his wide eyes taking her in.

The cop’s heart fluttered a little at the way he said her name this time. It wasn’t any of the tones with which she’d heard him say it before: seductive, smug, angry, frustrated, threatening…

No, there was longing and hope and, dared Iris think, _ reverence _ in the speedster’s voice this morning. 

“Hey,” Sergeant West greeted back with a nod just as he stood up from his armchair. “Just got out of a short meeting with Cisco, well our meetings are always short actually…I wanted to know if you ever went back to see Waller?” she managed to ask after rambling off.

She was a bit off her game because there was something _disarming_ about Barry Allen in a formal office attire underneath a _ white lab coat _. Thank goodness he didn’t wear glasses, though his beautiful green eyes were more than enough already.

“I did that same evening, but the building was empty, wiped clean,” the speedster answered calmly as he came around his desk and leaned against it to face her, loosely crossing his arms over his chest.

That was a distancing gesture, wasn’t it? No, she was imagining things. He wouldn’t have left his chair if he didn’t want to talk.

“I guess that they packed the moment we freed J’onn J’onzz,” Iris speculated. “They probably feared that he’d help us have the army take responsibility for harming the people of Central City just to have their Godai.”

“You know, J’onzz told me that he didn’t mean that our planet needed the _ literal _ five element warriors,” Barry informed her with a humorless laugh. “He made his first contact with the Japanese back in the seventeenth century—which he referred as 'a few cycles ago' if you'd believe it—and _ their _ warrior adhered to the teachings inculcating the embodiment of the Godai. But at no point did J'onn mean that we needed five specific fighters with elemental powers to win against the invaders. He kept repeating Godai because that’s what the Buddhists were emphasizing during training, so he assumed that it meant strong or something.”

“No way,” Iris breathed out, her outrage so acute that it died off right away. “Everything that happened…”

“...was the product of a misunderstanding, yes,” the speedster confirmed. “Even that man from the future, that other speedster…He was not only in the wrong time period, he was also in the wrong place.”

“He seemed to _ know _ you,” Iris recalled, before a phantom fear crawled up her spine. “And to wish _ both of us _ harm.”

Iris couldn't ignore the fact that the man from the future had immediately guessed that Barry _ Allen _ was her love interest. How could he have known that, unless there was some archives somewhere in the twenty-second century that associated their two names?

If _ fate _ hadn’t brought Iris and Barry together, after so many years without seeing each other, at such a memorable time in human history?

“Wait, Barry, that man from the future did ask if you were the _wind warrior_,” Iris remembered. “I told him that Waller had locked me in because of a dumb prophecy that the military thought linked me to someone else. How could he know exactly what I was talking about?”

“Iris, this man was from the future of a _ parallel universe _,” the scientist informed her. “For all we know ‘the wind warrior’ is the speedster’s nickname of the Barry Allen in that universe, the way ‘the dark speedster’ is mine here."

_ Parallel universe. _

What. The. Hell?

“I’m not going to question the parallel universe part, not after an alien invasion,” Iris conceded. “But the prophecy…”

“Do you think that I fit the description of the wind warrior, Iris?” Barry asked, and _ there _ was the exasperated tone. “Do you find me benevolent, compassionate and wise?”

Iris blinked at the hint of anger in his voice.

What was he angry about, that she thought herself _ linked _ to him? Or had the thought that she could be the ‘emotional anchor’ not even crossed his mind? That was unlikely, with the way he was clearly obsessed with her…Or had she succeeded in putting him off after their short talk at Jitters?

“Those wouldn’t be the words I’d use to describe you, no,” the cop admitted with a shrug that she forced to make casual.

_ Handsome, powerful and deadly is what I’d used instead _, Sergeant West thought to herself, though she felt lost now.

If there was no prophecy, no fate linking Iris to the speedster, then what was she to do with her _real_ attraction to him?

Nothing, of course. Yes, Barry Allen was a beautiful man, but he was also a dangerous criminal.

“Right,” Barry replied, and he sounded both disappointed _ and _ relieved.

That man would drive Iris to _ insanity _with his hot and cold dual attitude, she really shouldn’t get involved with him.

“Well, I’ll let you work,” Iris announced as she reached backward to press the door open, but Barry hesitantly raised a hand.

“Hey, about Silvertongue,” he started quietly before clearing his throat and speaking more confidently. “You’re right that he would be hard to track because he’s highly mobile, so I was thinking of messing around with Goldface’s business a bit. They’re all managed by Silvertongue, so I could influence his moves and force him to make transactions that would be more predictable to the investigation units assigned to him.”

That was…A generous offer.

_Generous_, that was one quality Iris could actually attribute to Barry Allen. 

Cisco had told her how much of his time, money and himself his best friend had given to make sure that Ramon Industries became a successful company. How Barry had given up on his own personal life to ensure that less fortunate meta-humans would still have one.

And Iris knew that she could ask _ anything _ of Barry, and he’d give it to her in a heartbeat and on a silver platter, like he’d given her the arrest of Bronzeskin and Mirror Master.

But Iris couldn’t ask him anything, because she had nothing to give him _ in return _.

“You can do whatever you want, Flash,” she replied with a nonchalant wave of her hand. “I don’t need your help, and I don’t want it either. I want my next big arrest to be backed up by a thoroughly documented investigation, so that I can at least get something out of it.”

“Sounds fair,” he commented flatly. “Good luck with that, Sergeant.”

Huh.

No flirtatious tone with her title? In fact, Iris couldn’t remember the last time that Barry had flirted with her. The Scudder case? He hadn’t even tried at Jitters.

So much for her being the emotional anchor to the wind warrior. Eddie Thawne would be disappointed.

“By the way, did you ever see Thawne after we got rid of all the aliens?” the cop asked, curious. “He’s the one who handed me to Waller, and he seemed ready for the invasion, but when my father debriefed me on the military report, he only mentioned General Eiling, not Colonel Thawne."

“That’s because Thawne is dead,” Barry informed her evenly.

"Eddie Thawne died during the battle?" Iris asked, shocked.

She was aware that quite a few soldiers and national guards had perished during the invasion—thankfully the police had only counted injured officers—but Iris had been sure that someone as resilient as the colonel would've made it out alive.

"Actually he died _ after _ the battle," Barry specified with a head tilt and a shrug.

"From his injuries?" Iris asked, though a subtle squeeze in her gut was telling her that she _ didn't _ want to know.

"From a hand to the heart," the speedster corrected her calmly as his eyes locked onto hers. 

Iris wouldn't have been surprised if he had made his eyes glow red, but she supposed that scaring her wasn't his intention since he didn't do it. His eyes remained clear and green and beautiful, everything that his soul _ wasn't_.

"He would've kept coming for you, Iris," Barry justified quietly, almost hesitantly as he leaned away from his desk and took a step towards her. "Ask your father. Thawne was going to use you as, and I quote: 'an insurance policy against The Flash'."

Yes, Eddie Thawne had been a total asshole to Iris, but he'd done what he'd thought he had to do to_ stay alive _ in order to defend people from _ aliens _! Barry had no right to take his life like that!

"You're telling me that…So what?" the sergeant asked as she took a step forward herself, refusing to back away in fear.

She wasn't scared of _ him_. She was disgusted and horrified by his _disrespect for_ _ human life_.

"Do you expect me to _thank_ _you_ for killing a man who served his country, who fought for _humanity_ as a whole to the best of his ability?" She bit out as she took another slow step towards him.

"I did it to protect you, Iris!" Barry _dared_ reply when he stop a mere feet away from her.

_ Wow._

After all this time, after what he'd said to Scott about her being a _ kickass _ , after he'd _ objected to _ Scudder's claim that she was his weakness? _ That _ was his excuse? 

"I don't need you to protect me!" she shouted at him, close enough now to shove him in the chest.

Barry caught her hand and kept it over his heart.

The last time Iris' hand had been at that exact spot, she had felt so_ relieved _ to get out of her cell and away from the corpse that had looked like her for a few harrowing seconds. She had clinged to the dark speedster because, after dealing with a troop of soldiers, an intimidating secret agent and a man from the future, Barry Allen had felt _familiar and safe and warm_.

Also, for the first time, Iris had felt some kinship to Barry Allen: just like her, he had felt sorry for Hannibal Bates, and had asked for his name.

Just like her, he was a human being trying to save his hometown and planet from an alien invasion.

Just like her, he had been angry at Waller and the military for what they'd done to the people of Central City, for turning thousands of people into meta-humans and then leaving them to their own devices, only focusing on finding five of them.

But that had been _ then_, in the middle of a crisis.

_ Now_, Iris couldn't relate to Barry Allen at all. Even what she thought she liked about him seemed to have been a lie.

"I thought that you _ understood_," she confessed softly, disappointment replacing her outrage. "If there was one thing _ I thought _ I appreciated about you, it was the fact that you took me _ seriously _ as a cop, as a _ fighter_. But you're just like my father—"

"No, _ no_, Iris, I know that you don't need protection," he assured her as he shook his head vigorously. "Not from _ others..._But you need protection from _ me_."

"What?" she whispered, blinking as she tried to process his words.

"As you’re probably aware, I heard what you told that man from the future when you were locked up," he said before squeezing her hand with his then letting it go.

That put Iris on high alert, but she was more disconcerted about the part of her that immediately missed his warm touch, the part that wanted to keep her hand over his fast-beating heart.

Fortunately, the logical part of her lowered her arm by her side.

"You said that 'maybe in another life' you and I…" he recalled quietly, his eyes searching hers.

Iris knew what he was referring to. She also knew what he was looking for in her eyes, but she couldn't give it to him.

Maybe if he hadn't _ just _ convinced her to ignore the whole prophecy thing, she would've forever felt linked to him somehow, whether she liked it or not. And as strong as she believed that she was, the cop couldn't be sure that she wouldn't have eventually given into _fate_ out of some moral obligation to keep the dark speedster from 'spiraling out of control'.

But Barry _ had _ just persuaded her that she had no moral obligation to keep him in check, that there was nothing deeper, nothing _ transcendental _ about what Iris West felt for Barry Allen. Just pure physical attraction, which wasn't worth the constant headaches that a _ forbidden relationship _ with The Flash would bring to Sergeant West's life.

"Yeah, I thought so," Barry commented once he was done looking, and he backed away from her, then turned around to return to his chair, but he didn't sit down.

"You see Iris, I'm never going to stop loving you, nor stop wanting you to give me a chance to prove to you that I could be…" he started, his eyes staring without seeing what was on the screen of his desktop. 

"_Anything _ that you'd ever want from a romantic partner," he finished his sentence before looking back at her. "And _ every time _ I'd run to you to kick Thawne's ass for bothering you yet again, I would hope for one more chance to land a date with you. But you're _ never _ going to give me one, are you?"

"No," she answered immediately, although that isolated, hidden part of her was calling her a _liar_.

"Then _ yes_, you should thank me for protecting you from myself," he concluded. "Because I'd drive you so crazy that you might end up needing therapy again."

_I survived Dr. Finkel just fine the first time around_, Iris pointed out in her head, but outwardly she just stared silently at Barry.

"Please leave," he requested, sounding so pained that Iris almost took a step towards him instead. 

But again, her logical side took over, and five minutes later Iris was driving away from Ramon Industries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are deeply appreciated!
> 
> Please do not, I repeat, DO NOT PANIC! I said that the West-Allen slow burn was coming to an end, and THAT was the end of it! Next chapter will pick up right in 2016 with a background to the 2016 fast forwards from chapters 2, 5 and 8.


	15. You Caused It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why Barry hates Hartley part 2; the prelude to the West-Allen drunk makeout session.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No West-Allen in this chapter please don't kill me! I actually hope that you'll enjoy this normal-length chapter regardless because I had a lot of fun writing it. I'm posting chapter 16 as well in case you really don't care about this one.
> 
> Chapter title from "Youth" by Daughter.

**2013**

“Your lightning…It turned red for a moment,” Caitlin commented quietly, her voice slightly shaky.

Part of Barry wanted to apologize for scaring her, but the other part was just angry that she would defend Hartley.

Hartley, who looked unapologetic and downright smug after Barry had confronted him about the meta-cuffs.

“How’s the color of my lightning relevant, here?” the speedster questioned as he pointed a gloved finger at Rathaway. “I just told you that he _ helped _ Palmer design those damn meta-cuffs!”

“Someone would’ve come up with a solution to superpowered criminals sooner or later, Barry,” Ronnie defended as he wrapped a protective arm over Caitlin’s shoulder. “To be honest, Cisco and I had been working on a design too—”

“What,” Barry reacted flatly, and he wanted to strangle Hartley when the latter snickered.

“Really, Allen?” the sound meta spoke up. “You thought that because we’re meta-humans _ ourselves _ that we would be okay with other powered people causing panic in our city?”

“You moved to Star City, so shut up,” Cisco threw at his estranged friend.

To Barry’s satisfaction, the engineer looked just as pissed at Rathaway as Barry was.

“And yeah, it’s _ our _ city, so what right does Palmer have to get a contract with the Central City police, huh?” the Ramon Industries CEO questioned. “You just gave away our market to a _ direct competitor from another state, _ Hartley! What the hell? As if Mercury Labs wasn’t already stealing all of our potential clients!”

“Hey, I didn’t know that you guys were struggling, my bad,” Rathaway apologized, not sounding sorry enough. 

“If you’d been here the whole time to _ help _…” Barry pointed out.

“I’m sorry, but how are _ you _ helping the company, exactly?” the rich heir talked back. “I haven’t read your name in any publications lately. All the praises Tessa and Harrison used to sing about you, for what? You couldn’t even land a pitiful government salary job!”

He was about to laugh, but he yelped instead when Barry sped close and punched the wall right next to one of his sensitive ears.

“Barry!” Caitlin, Cisco and Ronnie exclaimed in unison.

“My, my, how low and hard has the ‘_ angel’ _ of S.T.A.R. Labs fallen!” Hartley mocked, though from up close Barry could tell that he was scared shitless.

“What would the good Dr. Harrison say, huh? And Dr. Morgan? She’d all but adopted you as her long-lost son. It’s a good thing that Jesse refused to stay, or you would’ve been a very bad influence—”

“Alright, you two, enough!” Cisco demanded before pushing Barry away from Hartley with one of his airwaves.

“Did you just use your powers on _ me _?” the speedster asked his best friend, incredulous.

“_Yes_, and I’m going to use my powers on him, too,” the breacher announced as he opened a breach and pointed at it as he stared at Hartley. “I think that it leads to one of the guest bedrooms in your ridiculously big mansion. If not, _ I don’t care _. Get out of my sight, and don’t return until I’ve forgiven you this betrayal, Hartley.”

“Would telling you that at first I had _ no idea _ that Ray was going to commercialize the meta-cuffs help you forgive me a bit faster?” the sound meta asked hesitantly.

“And what did you think he was going to do with _ power-dampening handcuffs _? Did he not do all sorts of tests on you to get them right in the first place?” Cisco asked incredulously as he let his portal close.

Hartley rolled his eyes and blushed, and it took a moment for Barry’s mind to go down a path it hadn’t taken since first year of grad school (he’d been really drunk, okay?) to understand what Rathaway had hoped Palmer would do with_ handcuffs _.

“No way, you thought he was going to use it for some _ kinky sex _ with you?” Cisco also concluded with a pensive frown. “I mean…alright, the idea _ has _ some merit—”

“Cisco!” Caitlin chided, her blush more intense than Rathaway’s.

“What? It _ makes sense _ !” the inventor defended. “Some of us have powers that would ruin _ bedtime activities _. Meta-cuffs would definitely help prevent unfortunate accidents…”

“Thank you, that’s exactly what my reasoning had been when I saw the conceptual drawings,” Hartley explained. “How was I to know that Ray was planning on using the cuffs for something as mundane as giving them to the police, _ for free _? Really?”

“You still should’ve warned us once you knew the real purpose of those meta-cuffs, Hartley,” Ronnie argued. “Palmer’s Tech can afford to give away expensive pieces of technology, _ we _ can’t. An exclusive contract with the city would’ve been nice.”

“Guys, if you need investors, I can ask my father—” Hartley started, but Cisco shook his head.

“Your father went to college with Tina McGee,” the young entrepreneur pointed out. “He’s already a trustee of Mercury Lab, he wouldn’t invest in a competitor.”

“My mother went to college with Dr. Morgan, Dr. Wells, _ and _ the Allens,” Rathaway countered. “I’m sure that she’d gladly write a check for Barry’s handsome but now broke face…”

This time, the rich heir yelped at the flames that almost burned his hair.

“If you can’t spend five minutes without offending Barry, you might as well leave _ now _,” Ronnie advised coldly. “Joking about his losses is low, even for you.”

Barry himself had been too outraged to threaten Hartley. 

His parents were a touchy subject, more so because Dr. Morgan and Dr. Wells had died the exact same way as Nora and Henry Allen: in a car accident.

“His losses?” Rathaway echoed. “What about _ my _ losses? Tessa and Harrison were _ my family too _ !” he reminded the group. “I was their first intern—no Cisco you weren’t their first intern, you were their first full time, live at work _ employee _ —and I also wanted to see _ their dream project _ become a reality. That’s why I _ begged _ you to postpone the launch when _ my gut _ told me that something was wrong: I wanted you to do it _ right! _ But did any of you three listen? No, more than seeing a dream come true, you saw _ money _ come your way…”

“_ Excuse us _ for not having been born with a silver spoon in our mouth! Wow, Hartley!” Cisco talked back passionately.

“Is that why you didn’t tell Barry where his money was going, huh?” the rich heir questioned just as passionately. “He _ was _ rich too, and did I not tell you that using his inheritance to fund _ your _ dream was a terrible idea, Cisco? Now _ both of you _ are poor! Being poor is a crime on its own, but being smart, handsome _ and _ poor? No wonder you’ve turned all dark and whatnot,” he addressed the last words to Barry. “I’m sorry that this tragedy seems to have hit you the hardest, Allen, truly I am. But that’s not a reason to give up on _ everything _. Man up and help Cisco build his empire, the way you promised you would.”

Barry didn’t feel like telling Rathaway that he was the reason Ramon Industries was still standing. Without the money he’d been stealing, Cisco wouldn’t be able to pay his new employees—Caitlin and Ronnie were the only ones from before the particle accelerator explosion who hadn’t left.

(And yes, you bet that _ The Flash _ had requested all the others not to tell on their former boss.)

“I won’t repeat myself,” Ronnie warned Hartley as he went to the door and pressed the button to slide it open. “It was good to see you, Hartley. Come back when you’ve grown to use social filters.”

“An original way of saying ‘never’,” Rathaway mumbled bitterly, but Caitlin and Cisco shook their heads in sync.

“You’re welcome to return anytime, Hartley,” Caitlin asserted after giving him a quick hug. “You’re our friend, but so is Barry…”

“...and he’s been here with us while you’ve been away trying to charm your way into Ray Palmer’s heart,” Cisco finished Caitlin’s thought, though Barry was sure that the doctor would’ve said that more tactfully. “So here’s to hoping that money _ will _ come our way soon so you won’t feel too embarrassed to hang out with us, yeah?”

“You’re too smart to stay poor, anyway,” Hartley replied with a shrug, but he did exchange a smile with Cisco before walking towards the door.

As expected, he was too proud to apologize to Barry.

Barry didn’t mind. He didn’t want to apologize for the hole in Cisco’s wall either.

**2016**

“Hey Cisco’s what’s up? I was just about to try some alcohol as a final test for the patch—” Barry started as he walked into his best friend’s office, his eyes down on the screen of his phone, looking for a list of popular brands of beer. Then he realized that Cisco wasn’t alone.

And the woman seated across from R.I.’s CEO wasn’t Caitlin nor Ellen (and definitely not_ Iris _) so it took a moment for Barry’s shock to dissipate and for his brain to provide a name for that face.

Dinah Drake.

Wait,_ what? _

“Is Iris okay? What’s wrong?” the speedster asked the other two people in the room right away.

“You want to tell me that _ this _ Barry Allen is _ The Flash _?” the cop asked Cisco with a skeptical raised eyebrow.

“What the fuck, Cisco!” Barry exclaimed. “You told her _ my secret _?”

“I told her _ our _ secrets,” the businessman corrected him. “Figured that she deserved to know who gave her the powers she then used to protect the city from aliens last year. Did you know that she only did it because of your message on the meta forum?”

“So did Kendra,” the blonde woman informed as she stood up and extended a hand towards Barry. “We wouldn’t have risked our careers by revealing our secrets if we hadn’t been touched by your call, Flash. It’s weird to say this since I’m a cop, but it’s _ an honor _ to finally make your acquaintance.”

“The honor is mine,” Barry managed to say as he shook her hand, sparing a surprised glance at Cisco.

The engineer smiled widely and shrugged.

“Really?” Detective Drake asked with a snort after withdrawing her hand. “It’s an honor for a _ cop killer _ to meet a cop?”

“I once wanted to _ work for _ the police,” he let her know, shrugging at the shock on her face. “I know who you are, Detective Dinah Drake. You took down so many drug cartels that drug dealing went down from being the biggest crime in district five after over forty years of it being a lost cause to the police. Snart is a legend because he was good at fighting the new number one crime that is contraband, but _ you’re _ a legend because you fought _ and won _ against the illegal drug trade.”

“Wow,” the cop reacted, a slight blush showing that she was flattered. “Thanks. You know, something has to be said about the fact that the last person who sang my praises like this, almost word for word what you just said, was _ Iris West _, back when she was a rookie in district five.”

“Destiny,” Cisco slipped out between two fake coughs.

“And yes, I’m here because West might get herself in trouble _soon_,” Drake added as she grabbed a paper file she had placed on Cisco’s desk.

“This is information I, Detective Singh, and other cops in charge of investigating Silvertongue owe to The Flash…to _ you _ . You’ve been a pain in Goldface’s ass for the past months, and that has allowed us to better track his second in command. Then three days ago, Sergeant West, who’s _ not _ part of the investigation team, told me that she might know where Silvertongue’s main base of operations is.”

“She does?” both Barry and Cisco asked.

“We were supposed to find out if her intel was valid tonight,” the detective informed him when she opened the folder and handed Barry a photograph of a nightclub.

It looked fancy, and though nightclubs weren’t Barry’s scene, he knew the names of the most popular places in the city he could lap across in under twenty seconds. But ‘Rogues’ wasn’t familiar to him.

“This nightclub is located in the dead center of district three,” Drake told him before he could ask about it, then she handed him a picture of a dead body.

_ Sam Scudder’ _s dead body.

“It happened last month,” the detective shared, “and the fact that you didn’t know means that we’ve done a good job keeping the news under wraps. Apparently, West had been visiting Scudder in jail. She even managed to have him take a deal with Cecile Horton—yes, I know, she’s way over her head here, and normally I’d have Internal Affairs slap her wrists, but…What do you know about district three?”

“That it’s _shit_, pardon my language,” Barry replied. “It’s even worse than district four, and I don’t think that anyone who lives there isn’t related to some gang or a big shot in the black market.”

“You’re right,” the detective confirmed. “So to have that special weapon pop out of nowhere directly _ there _…Iris did us all a favor by overstepping her boundaries and getting intel out of Scudder. It’s unfortunate that someone clearly ratted out Scudder to Goldface or Silvertongue, because Scudder could’ve been a good C.I. If Iris is right, and we can get access to Silvertongue’s ledger—”

“_Ledgers_ are still a thing?” Cisco interrupted. “It’s twenty-sixteen!”

“That’s exactly why ledgers are still a thing in the criminal world, Mr. Ramon,” the cop pointed out. “Criminals know that their computers can be hacked remotely, so they don’t take the risk to document their activities on digital media. And the term ledger encompasses all kinds of paper trail documenting criminal activities. How Iris knew that Scudder would know that kind of info is still a mystery, he wouldn’t tell_ me _ anything."

Barry and Cisco exchanged a furtive look. _They_ knew how Iris had known: Mirror Master had told the three of them that he had been directly tasked by Silvertongue to kill Snart and frame Goldface for it. That meant that Scudder had been trusted by Silvertongue to keep his secrets. Iris clearly hadn't shared the info with Drake, but it's possible that she had forgotten that detail at the time she got Scudder arrested.

"But if we get our hands on Silvertongue’s ledger," the detective kept going, "we could not only restore order in district three, but also accomplish a lot in districts four and five. More importantly, we could stop the use of that awful weapon, against which bullet-proof vests are useless. Iris will be a legend in her own right if she nails Goldface, or even Silvertongue. She’s _ furious _ about Scudder’s death, which is why she’s gone through such lengths to build up a case of her own.” 

“I’m still waiting to know how I can help here,” Barry voiced as patiently as he could.

“Sorry,” the detective apologized with a self-deprecating smile. “I’m used to briefing my colleagues for missions, and I haven’t received any text from Iris indicating that she’s sure about Rogues being a good lead yet, so there’s no need to rush—”

A ping from the phone in her pocket made her sigh loudly as Barry raised a skeptical eyebrow at her.

“Iris and I went to check out Rogues earlier this evening,” Drake informed Barry more urgently as she checked her phone. “I can’t get in because the bouncers have a meta-human detector and make metas wear power-suppressing bracelets. I’m a decent hand-to-hand fighter and so is Iris, but I told her that going in without weapons _and_ without my power was a terrible idea. She _ disagreed _. She decided to make a detour to the mall to find appropriate clothes and told me that if I still wanted to join her, you guys might have something that would help me get inside Rogues undetected. She went inside around half an hour ago.”

“We do have something for you to bypass the detector, but I’d advise against you going at all,” Barry told the cop, “because I’m sure that there are a few criminals in that club who would recognize you, detective.”

“I know,” Drake admitted. “But I'll be only one woman in a nightclub full of women in skimpy dresses, and I know how not to bring any attention to myself. Iris had a short unofficial acting career during a joint mission I had with Snart's team, and thanks to her work with the SCU she knows how to distract individuals…But I doubt that she’d be good enough to convince a _ whole crowd _ that she's not a cop, especially after her time with SWAT. I’m the only partner that she has though, considering that she insists on not sharing her intel with Singh or any other officer investigating Silvertongue.”

“No offense, detective, but Barry Allen would be a much better _ partner _ for Iris West,” Cisco declared, laughing when Barry rolled his eyes at his lame wordplay. “Oh what, man? Stop resisting my match-making campaign!”

Yes, Cisco had been _ trying _ to get Iris and Barry together since the alien invasion, claiming that their partnership on the battlefield was another sign that they were made for one another.

It’s not that Barry had given up on Iris, but he didn’t want to impose himself on her anymore.

Anyways, Barry suspected that the real reason why Cisco was harassing him about ‘getting a life’ lately was because he had landed Cythia Reynolds and wanted to go on double dates (apparently Caitlin and Ronnie were 'too married' for double dates).

“Wait a second,” Dinah Drake’s voice brought Barry back in the moment. “You want Sergeant West, from the _ MFU-SWAT team _ to have a forbidden love affair with _ The Flash _?”

“When you say it like that,” Cisco commented with a frown, but then clapped his hands together, “it sounds even more_ epic _! Yeah, why the hell not!”

“What did Iris say in that text?” Barry asked the detective, not just to change subjects but because he was about two seconds ready to rip off his patch and run to district three.

“That she’s heard that Silvertongue might visit the club later tonight,” she answered. “If you want to go help her in my place, you better leave _ now _. I’m letting her know that you’re joining her,” she added as she typed up another text to Iris.

“Cisco?” the speedster asked, but the breacher had already stood up from his seat.

“Never been to that particular nightclub, but here,” he announced as he opened a breach. “That’s the storage room of a convenience store a few blocks away from there. _ Don’t _ judge.”

It wasn’t until he’d stepped on the other side of the interdimensional portal that the speedster remembered that one of his best friend’s exes used to work at that store, and he chuckled before jogging at _ normal speed _ towards the nightclub.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated! Don't forget to read chapter 16!
> 
> If you watched the show tonight please let me know if you liked the episode!
> 
> Speaking of the show, how fun would it have been to lighten up the storylines with Cisco's attempts at being the best wingman to Barry in s1-s2? Instead the show writers ruined everything with Eddie. Ugh. Now I feel better about killing him here.


	16. The Lovers That Went Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile in 2013, Iris' life wasn't too perfect either; a powerless speedster and his longtime crush in a b̶a̶r̶ nightclub...You already know how this ends!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a whole lot of West-Allen in the flashback (obviously) but friendly reminder that the slow burn is OVER! Granted, there's a lot of West-Allen teasing more than anything but things have to warm up first, right 🤣
> 
> Chapter title from "Youth" by Daughter.

**2013**

“I was _ working _!” Iris explained to her boyfriend Neil Conwell.

Though he was totally unrelated to her friend Stacy, Iris constantly joked about the two of them becoming sisters if she took Neil’s last name after they got married.

“You’re a cop, Iris. _ Try again _,” he suggested, his stubborn and condescending tone grating her.

“Yes, I’m a cop, and like I’ve told you many times before, I work for a unit that specializes in arresting people selling contraband—”

“Doesn’t look like you’re arresting anyone here,” Neil cut her off as he replayed the video.

A very short but damning video showing Iris chatting up a guy at a bar, being very touchy-feely and super flirty.

That man was Cooper Seldon, a computer hacker thanks to whom hundreds of counterfeit luxury wristwatches had been sold on the internet. The merchandise had been of particular interest to the SCU because it was the tool of choice of a few known hitmen, who hid fishing lines or needles inside the space past the crown of the watch. Indeed, one customer of the fake watch was some vengeful divorced woman who lived just a few blocks away from Iris' parents house. The lady had stabbed her ex-husband with a poisoned needle that she had concealed in her watch.

Seldon wasn’t the SCU’s ultimate target, but they had needed to get his ‘master key’ which contained all his sensitive data—including his list of clients—that he took everywhere with him.

So Iris had used all of her charms and managed to pick-pocket Seldon’s flash drive, then had given it to Rip Hunter on her way to the restroom, and returned it in the criminal's pocket when she’d sat again next to him.

Iris had _ hated _ every part of her act, had even had a little episode of compulsive hand-washing even though the touching had been minimal. It’s just that it had reminded her of that one undercover mission with Detective Drake (who was _ the best of the best _).

In the end, the team had been able to arrest the watch seller, and Iris had felt so _ proud _ for making her city a little safer, and Len had guaranteed that this case would count for a lot when he filed to have her promoted to Sergeant. _ Sergeant! _

She remembered having amazing celebration sex with Neil just two weeks ago, and _ now _ that stupid video had surfaced. 

“Where did you get that video in the first place?” the cop questioned. “I’ll have one of my colleagues trace its origin to make sure that there’s no further footage of this, or my cover could be blown over…Shit, Seldon is a _ computer hacker, _ hopefully that’s all the footage there is because he probably has already seen this video…"

"That's _ all _ you have to say about this?" Neil asked. "Also, _ another _ computer nerd? That's the third one hitting on you—oh, my bad, you were the one coming off super hard at the guy this time around! Am I wasting my time here? I don't seem to be your type."

Iris was speechless. Where was it coming from?

Alright, yes, a few days after she and Neil had gotten together, they'd gone to Linda's epic birthday party and Kevin had flirted with Iris because he _ hadn't known _ that Iris was in a new relationship; and one of the few times that Iris' boyfriend had dropped by the station during lunch break when the team could actually have a meal, Rip had been his obnoxiously flirty self and had blown air kisses at her when she'd left for their impromptu lunch date.

Iris remembered introducing Kevin as 'Linda's IT genius cousin', and Hunter as the 'tech guy of the team'.

So now Neil thought that she had a type, some _ nerd fetishism _? 

Maybe Iris had a _tiny_ weakness for glasses and white coats ever since binge-watching a show centered around a very hot E.R. doctor in college, but neither Kevin or Rip met the criteria.

Anyways, Neil Conwell, a big firefighter with an arresting smile and a body as hot as the flames he extinguished on a regular basis, was_ everyone’s _ type. 

"Neil, babe, come on, this is just a misunderstanding," she soothed her partner, rubbing his arm when she scooted closer to him on the couch, then grabbing her phone on the side table.

"A misunderstanding…What are you doing?" He asked as she texted Kendra in morse to have Waverider (Rip's codename) check the media files on Red's phone and track the origin of the most recently watched video.

'Red' was the designated codename for any of Iris' love interest that the team used—Neil was the third one since she'd joined SCU—since 'Purple' was Iris' codename (it couldn't be 'Blue' because that used to be Len's codename until Captain Cold became a thing) and that was because it was her favorite color and the fake stripper name she'd used for that short undercover mission with Drake. 

"Texting Kendra, reminding her to go home because she's a workaholic," Iris answered (it wasn't a lie, that's how she had _ ended _ her text) before dropping her phone and giving her boyfriend her full attention. "Anyways, it's _ my fault _, I should've told you about this once the mission was successfully completed. Sorry babe?"

She took his hand and swept her legs around to drape them over his lap.

"Let me make it up to you," she suggested seductively as she brought her other hand back to his arm but then brushed it over his chest and up his neck before gently scratching her purple-painted nails against the sensitive skin of nape.

Iris smiled when she felt the shiver that her ministrations had elicited in him—they'd made love just a few hours ago, but hey if he was up for another round so was she—but when she tried to straddle Neil he held her hips firmly and easily brought her back down to her side.

"No," he rejected her offer sternly before standing from his seat, displacing her legs unceremoniously. "No, Iris, you won't get me this time, I'm not avoiding this talk even for the best sex of my life!"

"What talk?" she asked, confused.

“You don't _ love _ me," her partner accused her. "If you did, you wouldn't want to touch other guys like that."

"It’s called compartmentalization!” she explained to him, sighing in exasperation as she stood up in turn. “Putting your feelings away, the way you ignore fear when you enter a building on fire—”

“Or the way you ignore your mother?” her boyfriend cut her off.

_ What? _

“I’m so sorry, Iris, that was low,” Neil apologized right away as he cupped her face. “I’m really sorry!”

“Is that what you really think?” Iris whispered as tears pooled in her eyes. “That I’m emotionally handicapped? That I can’t love you because I don’t love my mother either?”

“No, babe, no, that’s not it,” he denied. “My insecurity has nothing to do with your strained relationship with your mother, but I do think that you should give her a chance to reconnect… ”

“She wants to catch up as if she’d only left for a few months, but it’s been _ eighteen years _ ,” Iris reminded him as tears pearled down her cheeks. “She’s even making all these suggestions about me transfering to my dad’s district, even though she knows that he’s _ against _ me moving to an area with a large population of meta-humans…”

“That’s just what fathers do, Iris,” Neil assured her with a sympathetic smile. “They systematically fear for their daughters’ safety, just like boyfriends get jealous about their girlfriends touching other men. I’m sure that Joe knows that you're a badass. He taught you how to shoot and got you started on boxing, right? But _ maybe _ he wasn’t that great at teaching you how to open up? I mean, it couldn’t have been easy for him not to be with the love of his life for so long…”

“I don’t think that they would’ve stayed together if they’d lived in the same place,” Iris speculated. “She seemed happy without us then. I guess she’s happy to have us _ now _…”

“But you’re rejecting her attempts to get to know you better,” Neil pointed out. “Would it be so bad for you to join your father’s district? You told me that he was a bit overwhelmed with this new unit.”

“His friend, Detective Singh, is the one who actually told me,” Corporal West admitted. “They’ve recruited field officers en mass, but now they need people with backgrounds in law or policy-making to take on supervising duties. There are a lot of new regulations, so the paperwork is ‘hell on earth’, Singh's words.”

“So you wouldn’t actually be out in the field, touching criminals who can shoot lasers from their eyes?” her boyfriend asked with a little laugh.

“Would that make you _ stay _, if I took a desk job?” Iris asked, her voice sounding smaller than she ever remembered it being. “I promise that I’ll be better at expressing my emotions…” 

“You’re not emotionally stunted, Iris West,” Neil assured her with a self-deprecating smile as he gently wiped away her tears, then straightened up and took a step back. “_ I’m _ the one who can’t bring out the passionate soul that resides in that tiny body of yours. I knew from the start that I wasn’t the right guy for you, but I couldn’t help clinging to you: your smile, your presence…I was hoping to be worthy of you someday, yet here I am being childish about you owning a criminal like the _ incredible asset _ that Snart knows you are. He saw the fire in you and decided to unleash it on the criminal world of district five. But you know what we firefighters say about fires…”

“They always grow and spread faster than expected,” Iris quoted as she wiped away the remainder of her tears. “Good thing that Len has his cold gun!”

They both laughed at Iris’ lame joke.

She would miss that, the fact that Neil always laughed at her jokes. And the fact that, despite her being a badass, he made her feel _ fragile _ whenever he held her in his big arms, lifting her off the floor as if she weighed nothing.

This relationship hadn’t lasted very long, just three months, but Iris had developed new habits already: waking up at odd hours, visiting the fire station, going out for a run with Neil every Tuesday and Saturday evening… 

She might as well transfer to district seven, because it _was _true, working with her father wouldn’t be so bad, and she would be close enough to the D.A. 's office to stop by for lunch dates with her mom...

Maybe _after_ her promotion to Sergeant. There was no way of knowing if Captain West would be as generous rewarding his own daughter’s work as Captain Cold currently was with his latest recruit.

* * *

**2016**

  
  


“Holy shit, it’s working,” Barry whispered to himself as the burn of his shot travelled down his throat and spread in his chest, eliciting a nice full-body shiver that he hadn’t felt in _ years _.

Was that enough liquid courage for him to approach Iris now? It seemed that his confidence was being suppressed along with his powers.

He really needed to get to Sergeant West soon though, otherwise her upstanding citizen’s aura would give her away very soon.

To be sure, Iris looked the part of a regular customer in her skimpy dress and stripper stilettos—good lord, her _ legs _ alone were worthy of worship—but there was something too dignified in the way she moved, and her beauty was too angelic for her not to stand out in a crowd of lowlifes. 

When the cop literally accosted an underage customer sniffing some powdery substance at the bar on the other side of the dancefloor—drawing the attention of inconspicuous security guards—Barry downed another shot before zigzagging between a sea of sweaty bodies, reaching the undercover cop just before the guards thanks to his longer legs.

"If you want to know where to get more of that, follow me!" he told Iris loud enough for the thugs to hear.

The kid scrammed, and Barry had to cage Iris with his body to prevent her from going after him.

Only then did she seem to notice who had accosted her—there was no doubt that she was used to ignoring guys hitting on her in this type of setting—and Barry internally winced when she shifted the guards' attention to _ him _ instead.

"So you _do_ have a way to bypass—" she said a bit too loudly while looking at his wrists, thankfully cutting herself off when she saw that she drew the gazes of even other customers.

"A way to buy a pass to the VIP lounge? Yes, sure," Barry deflected loudly, making sure that the guards heard him. “But let’s have some fun first, shall we?"

He pulled Iris to him with a hand on her lower back—that already too short dress didn't even cover her spine, _ hot damn _—and bent over to line up his lips to her ear.

"Please stop talking, or the security guards will pounce on us," he warned her quietly even as she tried to look for the minor over his shoulder. "Seriously, West—"

"It's _ Purple _, you idiot," she unexpectedly corrected him at the proper volume when she finally relaxed, and started stepping to the beat of the music booming in the place.

"Purple? Are you supposed to be a _ stripper _? No offense, but you're way too stiff for that," Barry teased as he lightly grabbed her hips, relieved that she didn't immediately slap his hands off.

"I'll show you _ stiff, _ " she hissed before leading him to the bar on that side of the floor, and fifteen minutes later the speedster was chuckling as Sergeant West struggled to finish _ one _ cocktail.

Once Iris got properly inebriated, however, Barry stopped laughing, because Iris West was _ sin incarnate _ when she was all out in her stripper persona.

"What…what are you doing?" the speedster _ squeaked _ when she started a tantalizing lap dance on him the moment he got them to sit at one of the plush booths away from the crowd—he had to follow up with the claim that he could afford to purchase a VIP pass anytime.

"What does it look like I'm doing, handsome?" she asked back playfully as she turned around to straddle him and link her wrists behind his neck.

_ Don't look down, Allen, don't you fucking dare look down _, Barry discouraged himself just as he finally gathered his wits and placed a sure hand on ‘Purple’'s naked lower back again to keep her steady. Not that she seemed to need any help: despite having too much alcohol in her system, her voice and coordination were deceptively normal.

When he absentmindedly thanked a waitress for bringing the champagne and appetizers he'd ordered, Barry noticed the envious looks he was getting from the other wealthy customers.

"Lucky bastard," he heard someone not quite whisper from the both behind him.

"That babe is too fine for a gangly thing like him," someone else complained. "She needs a real man, like _ me _!"

Barry felt like rolling his eyes, but he then had to suppress a moan when Iris pressed her chest to his and chuckled softly in his ear.

His shock was the only thing keeping him from sporting a painful hard on, but he knew that it would come sooner or later.

"I think I just saw Silvertongue heading to the VIP lounge, upstairs” she whispered before nipping his earlobe. “Let’s go there in ten minutes. What should I call you?” she asked as she pulled away, bringing her face so close to his that Barry could count her eyelashes.

“Errr…Red?” he offered.

Her favorite color was purple, and his was red, so it made sense right?

She stared at him with an odd expression before shaking her head and giggling.

Iris West _ giggled _ at him.

Barry wondered if it was okay for him to travel back in time to his high school graduation day, and tell his younger self not to be sad because he thought that he would never see Iris again, except maybe at school reunions.

_ “Kid, not only are you going to see Iris West again, but she’s going to give you a lap dance, so cheer up _ ,” was totally what the speedster felt he needed to tell his past self. “ _ Oh, and also, you’re going to lose your parents in five months, and turn into a villain in five years, but Iris will make everything better, I promise.” _

Because Iris _ did _ make everything better, Barry internally realized as ‘Purple’ cheerfully popped the bottle of champagne, her fake good mood spreading to the other customers who stopped being jealous of ‘Red’ and had the good sense to instead try to soak in Iris’ radiance.

Barry had been so dumb to stay away from her light. He didn’t know yet how he was going to get her to allow him to stand by her side again, because that’s not where he belonged. He belonged on the floor, _ beneath her _, the ‘dark speedster’ a shadow to the bright knight of justice.

But they _ did _ fit together in a way Barry didn’t fit with anyone else, not even his own meta-human friends and teammates.

It seemed that Goldface and Silvertongue weren’t the only members of a dangerous partnership between a meta and a non-meta. 

They’d better watch out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> So this is the prelude to the 2016 fast forwards in chapters 2, 5 and 8, you can go right back and read those parts to get a chronological sequence of the events. Summary: Barry and Iris managed to get pictures of Silvertongue's ledger, messed around a little bit but didn't do much other than grope each other while drunk. And then the next day Goldface announced his masked ball. That's where next chapter will pick up.


	17. The Flood That Wrecked Our Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That time when Barry's lightning turned red; Iris confide in Kendra a few weeks after the invasion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've been looking forward to the long awaited West-Allen moments and angst isn't your thing, feel free to skip to chapter 18 aka the Masked Ball part 1. Maybe come back afterwards?  
If you started reading this fic because of the dark!Barry tag, I hope that you'll like this chapter. There's Iris too, if you're an Iris fan!
> 
> Chapter title from "Youth" by Daughter, and I think that I really connected the lyrics to the story in this chapter.

**2013**

“Holy shit," the teenage boy whispered on the ground, his voice as shaky as his body.

Barry stared at the rear lights of the van zooming out into the night, his breathing erratic, his fist still half closed, only one bullet remaining at the center of his palm.

"Go home," he told the kid as he turned around, and startled a bit when the younger meta screamed in terror even as he took off, the sound of his still changing voice fading as he put distance between him and the person who had just saved him from being kidnapped by the military.

What was even his power? Barry hadn't been able to tell.

Whatever it was, it had been useless against the group of soldiers, so The Flash had rushed to free the boy from their tight hold. But then one soldier had landed a precise blow to the speedster's temple, and he had gone down like a ragdoll.

Had the soldier managed to lock the meta-cuffs around Barry's wrist, it would've been over for both the boy _ and _ him. Desperation had made the older meta-human forget that he even had powers, and he'd started defending himself with kicks and punches.

It was the kid's shout of distress that had made Barry call back on his lightning, hatred making his blood boil as he shook the thick bindings off his wrists then wrapped a hand against his opponent's neck, shouting at his brothers in arms to make an exchange of hostages.

It happened that he had the leader of the team at his mercy, and the guy calmly told his men to 'complete the mission'.

But when Barry's hand had started squeezing the soldier's neck and some sparks of his lightning went from yellow to bright red, the boy had been dropped unceremoniously on the paved ground of the deserted street.

Barry should've let the SFO leader go then. He'd been properly scared, one of his men had even started begging for his release. 

But the boy on the ground had been the _ third kid _ to be targeted by the soldiers in two months, according to the word of mouth the speedster relied on to keep up with the relentless military. The Flash hadn't been there for the other two young metas, and he'd _ known _that he couldn't be there for all of the next targets.

But if the soldiers never _ returned _ , then that wouldn't be a problem, right? That's why Barry had started vandalizing their vans or and why he'd started hitting them hard and fast whenever he detected them roaming the street of _his city_. But they _ kept on coming. _ He needed to do more to scare them off _for good_.

And the kid's scream had made the speedster so _ furious_. How could people sworn to _ protect _ the country assault a minor whose only crime had been to be out after curfew?

So Barry had kept on squeezing, ignoring the gurgling pleas of the SFO, and he had dispassionately felt the life leave the soldier's body. 

When multiple soldiers shot at him _and_ at the kid, Barry almost froze in shock as he literally saw red: his scarlet lightning had flooded his vision, so on top of being blinded he had remembered the time his yellow lightning had done the same in front of his friends, scaring Caitlin. How would she, Cisco and Ronnie look at him with his lightning fully red now?

By the time the speedster had regained awareness of the situation, he'd had to move faster than ever to evade the bullets coming at him before he had to pick the bullets right off the air so they couldn't reach the boy.

Out of breath, his hand had taken a few seconds to get steady again, and most of the bullets had escaped his grip. The repetitive clanking noise they made as they trickled down and hit the concrete had somehow reminded Barry of church bells at _ funerals_. 

Tessa and Harrison's, a couple of years ago.

His parents', when he was not much older than the kid who had gaped at him from the pavement.

Barry had told the boy to go home, sincerely hoping that the teenager had one. Hoping that becoming a meta hadn't robbed him of his family like it had for others.

As for Barry himself, it had been a long time since he'd had a proper home.

He spent more time in the streets and at Ramon Industries than he did in his one bedroom. 

He had left the place he had called _ home _ for eighteen years many years ago, initially to move into his college dorm room. However, a few weeks after starting his higher education, that home had become just a cold and empty house because his parents would never welcome him there ever again. 

Barry had never returned there, not even after his parents' lawyer had given him the good news that the property was legally his after a tedious battle of property rights with Barry's extended family.

The good news had come only a few days before the one about his mentors' deaths. 

"Go home," Barry repeated quietly, absentmindedly noting that his vibrating voice sounded a bit different.  
  


**2015**

Hearing the low vibrating voice that she knew so well but without _seeing_ the speedster himself was a jarring experience. The echoes of firearms and missiles added to the sense of danger that permeated through The Flash's peculiar voice as it played from a digital record file.

** _"If you haven't looked outside your window after that earthquake, then let me inform you that ALIENS have crashed at the riverfront, and they DO NOT come in peace._ **

** _Yes, you heard me right, ALIENS. You have POWERS, so don't play the skeptical card now, especially since I'm sure that the sound of WAR is coming through this recording._ **

** _These aliens are BIGGER and STRONGER than the average human or meta-human, and they outnumber the military, national guards and police officers who are fending them off. _ **

** _Now, I'm no role model, so I won't appeal to your kind heart or bravery or patriotism in my request for help. In fact, FUCK patriotism because the government hasn't lifted a finger to assist those of us who lost jobs, family, friends, dreams and any sense of NORMALCY since the day our DNA mutated. Those of us who were discarded like trash after being labeled FREAK._ **

** _But CENTRAL CITY is our HOME, whether the other residents agree that we belong here or not. Those ugly creatures from some distant world want to TAKE IT FROM US, and I won't stand for it. So I'm going to do what I do best: run fast and kill those who think that they can get away with threatening MY FREEDOM to live my life in my hometown._ **

** _But I know that my powers won't be ENOUGH to kick these aliens back to where they come from. And if my powers aren't enough, then the mundane weapons that the armed forces are using won't cut it either._ **

** _So I'm BEGGING YOU, and I am begging because I have nothing to give you as compensation for your efforts IF we win…HELP me save Central City from these outer space freaks. We are the local freaks, right? The ONLY freaks who have a right to be in this city because it's in this city that our old lives ENDED and the new ones BEGAN. If the aliens take over, we'll NEVER get the opportunity to live these meta-human lives of ours to the fullest._ **

** _But if YOU AND I succeed in keeping our home SAFE from these aliens, then we'd have proven to our fellow citizens that we're actually NOT freaks. We meta-humans are PEOPLE, SAME AS THEM, and like them we have hope and we have dreams and we have purpose and WE BELONG HERE. Whether our neighbors or teachers or coworkers or the police like it or not, Central City is OURS TOO!_ **

** _So I'M going to FIGHT FOR IT using these powers I never asked for. Will YOU join me?"_ **

The recording cut off halfway through the sound of an explosion and of human screams, and while it felt like an incentive _ not _ to join the dark speedster in his fight against the aliens, it also emphasized the direness of the situation.

And heck, Iris was the police that didn't want him roaming the streets freely, but even _ she _ would have answered his call if he had addressed it to her.

No wonder Saunders and Drake had.

"He would be a great leader for the meta-human community," Kendra commented as she closed the forum page on her phone (a burner, which made sense). "Too bad he's a psychopathic killer," she added more quietly, though there was no chance of anyone hearing her in her new office.

It had been Snart’s office back when he was a lieutenant, and Kendra being the highest ranking SCU member after him had become the new leader of the team.

"Yeah," Iris agreed automatically, ignoring the denial trying to worm its way in her mind.

"A psychopathic killer who _ cares _ about you," Saunders claimed just as quietly, giving Iris a pointed look. 

"Excuse me?" the SWAT officer reacted with a frown. 

"_ Please _ Iris, don't play coy with me," her former teammate requested. "I was up in the air, remember? Had a bird's eye on how The Flash moved around. Whatever he did, however far he reached, he always ran back to you, as if you were his focal point."

Iris had expected her friend to bring that up.

“Well, we were on the _ same side _ that day,” she stated cautiously at Kendra, who narrowed her eyes at her anyways. “I didn't have an earpiece to communicate with my team so he helped me get updates on everyone's status, that’s all”

“No, that's _ not _ all,” the contraband cop objected. “I saw you later on, _ after _ the battle was over, hopping onto the dark speedster’s arms and running off God knows where! I had been thinking of giving you a lift myself, you looked frantic, checking out every patrol car on your way.”

_ Damn it. _

Iris remembered looking around to make sure that no one was watching, but she hadn’t _ looked up _.

“West, The Flash has killed six cops from your own damn station,” Kendra reminded her harshly but at a low volume as she leaned over her desk to place her face closer to Iris’. “Including _ your own team leader! _ They never disclosed which meta-human killed him, but really, _ who else _? The other meta-human criminals take great pride in terrorizing the city, they want recognition for each and every one of their misdeeds. But The Flash doesn’t show off, he does the deed and moves on. Just like with the transfers from district four, right? I remember you telling us that there was no solid proof for the murder of three of them, but the M.O. was the same as for the other two’s murders plus McMillan’s.”

“I haven’t forgotten that The Flash killed my team’s Alpha,” Iris argued, her outrage coloring her voice. “I will _ never _ forget or forgive him for that. But I was looking for _ my mother _ , and earlier that day The Flash had helped me escape from some shadow branch of the government, and he’d helped _ protect the city _ , so forgive me for trusting him a little bit more than normal _ that day _.”

“Your mother,” Kendra echoed softly before leaning back in her chair. “Alright, that makes sense. After all the efforts you put into reconnecting with her, losing her would’ve been devastating. But which shadow branch of the government are you talking about? There are quite a few.”

“Well, that’s one of the reasons why I’m here, actually,” West admitted. “Not sure if you still have leverage in HD, but could you look into a woman named Amanda Waller?”

“Waller?” Saunders exclaimed abruptly. “You were held prisoner by _ The Wall _ and you made it out? I take back my criticism of your fraternization with the dark speedster. You owe him your first born _ at least _!”

“Wow, that woman is that bad?” Iris asked, not really shocked by her friend’s reaction. “I knew it the moment I saw her. I mean, she was able to keep a powerful alien and a…a meta-human locked up for years. No wonder the SFO thought that I'd be secure with her.”

"Why would the SFO go after you? Kendra questioned. "We're talking about the MFU branch, right? But you’re not a meta."

"I'm not but," Iris started to answer, searching her friend's eyes, wondering if she should just tell the truth after all.

Kendra blinked at her hesitation, and Iris sighed.

Oh well, her former teammate knew how to keep secrets, and was the closest confidant she had (Iris couldn’t burden Linda with all this meta-human mess), so why not just tell her everything?

“They wanted to use me as leverage against The Flash,” she admitted. 

“So The Flash _ does _ care about you,” Saunders confirmed with a frown. “Enough that the military would use you against him? That means that—”

“He claims to be in love with me,” West admitted. “To have been in love with me since he was seventeen, actually.”

“Holy! The Flash is one of your high school exes?” Kendra asked.

“No!” Iris corrected her immediately. “His feelings were—I mean _ are _ unrequited…It’s complicated, Kendra.”

“That’s a euphemism for ‘I want to bang him too, but I have good reasons not to’,” her former teammate replied with a scoff.

“That’s not funny,” Iris commented before propping her elbows on the desk and dropping her head in her hands. “But yeah, I…I’m _ physically _ attracted to him, and I can’t be blamed for it. He’s _ hot _ , and smart, and there's a good man behind the unrepentant criminal. He cares for the city, and I don't need to inform you that he's against the marginalization of meta-humans. Maybe I would’ve liked him if he wasn’t a _ killer _ . Back in high school he was a good kid, the sweetest boy I ever got to interact with. I never even realized that he had a crush on me because I thought that he was just that _ nice _ with everyone.”

“It’s always the quiet ones,” Saunders quoted with a shrug.

“He killed the leader of the SFO squad, too,” Sergeant West felt the need to share after she remembered Thawne saying the same words Kendra had just uttered, back when Iris had arrested Barry. “He killed him because of _ me _, Kendra. Eddie Thawne had been trying all sorts of underhanded tactics to use me against the speedster, and I hated that soldier for it, but for Barry to just kill him like that—”

“That’s The Flash’s real name, Barry?” Kendra asked. “That sounds deceptively inoffensive. Not to speak ill of the dead, but that Thawne guy…He _ knew _ who he was dealing with. I’m sorry, I know I’m biased against that SFO squad because they used to prey on vulnerable metas until The Flash actually stopped their kidnapping spree. I’m sure the soldier served the country well from a big picture standpoint.”

Iris stared at her friend as the sentence she had repeated echoed in her head.

_ He knew who he was dealing with. _

Yes, Eddie Thawne had known _ beyond doubt _ that The Flash would hurt him if he pissed him off.

But, so had _ Peterson _. 

Peterson, who hadn’t listened to Iris’ request to abort the Bronzeskin mission, who hadn’t wanted to leave even when the speedster had threatened his life if he didn’t pack up.

That didn’t make Barry any less guilty of cold-blooded murder.

“Anyways, I say go for it, girl,” Kendra told Iris, who blinked to get back in the moment.

“Go for what?” she asked her former teammate.

“The Flash? You said that you were attracted to him?” Sergeant Saunders recapitulated. “And he’s in love with you.”

“You just said that you don’t condone his violence!” Iris reminded her.

“Yeah, so if you redirected his energy into more pacifist activities…” Kendra speculated as she wiggled her eyebrows.

“You’re pulling my leg, right?” Sergeant West questioned with narrowed eyes.

“Kinda, but _ not really _,” the new SCU leader answered with a shrug. “Yeah, he’s a killer, major turn off. He has to know that you hate him for it, right?”

“Yeah, he understands that I would never be with him the way he wants me to,” Iris replied, remembering the hurt in Barry’s voice even though he’d been the one to basically kick her out of his office a few weeks ago.

“Then he’d understand that if you started a physical relationship, that’s all it would ever be: _ physical, _” Kendra argued.

“That sounds like a recipe for disaster,” Iris objected. “What would happen when I find myself a _ real partner! _”

“And when will you find that ‘real partner’?” Saunders interrogated her. “Iris, you haven’t had a long-lasting relationship since we’ve met. You haven’t dated since that firefighter, I don’t even remember his name. Code naming your boyfriends ‘Red’ was such a silly thing to do, who started it?”

“_ You _ did,” Iris deadpanned, scowling when Kendra laughed at herself.

“Oh, well, that’s because I knew they wouldn’t last,” she justified. “No, I’m not saying that you’re not good at relationships, Iris, but you’re too invested in your career right now. And that’s okay, you’re young, and you’re damn good at your job. So make a name for yourself, but don’t skip on the little pleasures of life! Nothing keeps you going like a good rush of endorphins on the regular, trust me. And on a more serious note, keeping The Flash as an ally wouldn’t hurt. You’re a great cop, but you don’t have _ superpowers _. Flash not only has super speed, but he has the power to call onto other meta-humans,” she pointed out as she tapped on the screen of her burner phone. “We were damn lucky that he loves the city as much as we do. Without the twenty some meta-humans helping fight off the aliens, that battle at the riverfront could’ve gone very differently.”

“Yeah,” Iris agreed.

In fact, without Barry rescuing Iris and subsequently rescuing J’onn J’onzz, Central City might have fallen despite the help from the other metas.

“If his track record really repulses you, then by all means don’t let him touch you,” Saunders advised. “But if you could both get something out of a little hookup arrangement, then why the heck not? Plus, I'd love to know that you're not going to an _ empty home _ every day, Iris. Len's death reminded me that life is short, and I'd rather try things that I might call mistakes down the line than regret not trying things that could've brought me joy or even made this crazy life a little better. You should do the same.”

Iris nodded in solemn agreement, though she had no intention of propositioning the dark speedster first.

As for her empty home, there was nothing she could do for now. Her parents' house still felt like home most of the time, but on occasions her mother's presence made everything feel wrong there. Iris _ hated _ feeling that way when she'd worked so hard on forgiving Francine, and when her mother tried her best to make her feel loved and wanted there. But it was what it was. Iris had made her apartment cozy and warm and she loved it. One day she'll have her partner move in with her because there's no way that they'd have better tastes than her in home décor. _ Then _ the place would really feel like home.

“Huh, I need to join Drake soon in order to brief D.A. Horton about Scudder,” Kendra announced after taking a look at her desk clock. “We thought that we could broker a deal with him: reduce his sentence if he behaves and let his girlfriend walk on parole, in exchange for information on the leather jacket case."

“Still no lead on the leather jacket case, really?” Iris asked, surprised.

Someone had been selling counterfeit luxury leather jackets, and those were sold online and exclusively in a store owned by the Darbinyan family. That meant that whoever manufactured those jackets was a link to the Darbinyan’s money laundering activity.

Iris was convinced that Scudder knew about that. If he was as close to Silvertongue as he’d implied to her, Cisco and Barry, then he knew about a whole lot more than the leather jacket case.

Maybe Iris could get him to talk, _ off the record _?

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and Kudos are always appreciated!
> 
> Don't forget to read chapter 18! It's all West-Allen, no flashbacks!


	18. Like A Fire The World Can't Tame

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The masked ball part 1!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> West-Allen, what else is there to say?
> 
> Maybe a little dub-con warning. Barry's not an angel, but Iris IS one with a shotgun (chapter title callback!) so don't worry about her.
> 
> Iris' dress, because I failed yet again at inserting a picture in the chapter: https://www.asos.com/us/asos-tall/asos-design-tall-tulle-one-shoulder-maxi-dress/prd/9336383
> 
> Chapter title from "Primetime" by Janelle Monae (feat. Miguel).

**2016**

  
  


“Did you hear what was asked?” Iris whispered behind her clutch, blinking when Barry’s quick glance made her lower her free arm—her left arm was hooked around his right one to sell the image of the perfect couple in love.

“Even if _ super-hearing _ were my power, I couldn’t use it right now,” he pointed out calmly, looking down at her with open affection. “And she wouldn’t ask the same question to all of us, sweetheart.”

“Of course, babe, you’re right,” Iris replied sweetly, faking a smile that she hoped looked genuine to whoever was looking their way.

This soulmate thing was so _ stupid _ . Who knew that Goldface was a _ romantic _?

And what kind of questions were even supposed to tell if two people were made for each other?

“Aww, they got rejected,” someone ahead of them said softly, making Iris look on.

Indeed, an older couple quietly stepped aside and followed their escort back to the entrance, comforting each other with half hugs and soft touches the whole time. 

“We’re not going to pass,” Iris stated as the next couple in front of the examiner—for lack of a better term to describe the tall red-haired woman dressed all in white and wearing a golden mask—got asked their question. “Those two look totally in love with each other and they were declared _ not _ soulmates? How could _ we _ fool that examiner?”

“Not with that attitude, that’s for sure,” Barry chided her lightly. “And appearances can totally fool most people, but not a _ psychic _, which is what I think that woman is,” he added with a slight frown as he looked over the couple being currently examined.

“What? What’s wrong?” the cop asked quietly as she lifted up on her toes in an attempt to observe what he was seeing.

“They won’t make it either,” the speedster predicted with a soft shake of his head. “The taller guy clearly doesn’t want to be here.”

Iris felt her eyebrows lift when, indeed, the evaluated couple was rejected.

“Wait, so you’ve had a strategy for us to pass this whole time? Why didn’t you tell me?” she questioned him, trying to keep her irritation off her voice.

“I _ just _ figure it out, my love,” he assured her as he looked down at her, fondness prominent in his green gaze.

How did he manage to appear so…_ soft? _ Iris knew that he loved her, but she hadn’t expected his attitude towards her to change so much for this ridiculous soulmate test. The most uncomfortable part of the situation was that _ she _ had to keep up with his gentleness. She couldn’t wait to be able to avoid his gaze and step away from his reach.

“So what is it?” she asked him as they stepped forward, only two more couples ahead of them.

“Whatever we say out loud doesn’t matter,” he whispered against her temple before gently kissing her hair.

Okay, that felt a tad bit _ overwhelming, _but not in a bad way. Barry must have been a terrific boyfriend back in the day, before he turned into a criminal. He knew how to make a woman swoon, that was for sure.

“It’s what we _ think _ that counts? _ What _should we think about then? That we are soulmates? It can't be that easy,” Iris commented against the smooth fabric covering his shoulder.

He looked great in that tuxedo. _ Really _ great. The vain part of Iris was really proud to have such a handsome date. His black velvet mask brought out the green of his eyes, so even if the other guests couldn’t see his entire face, they could still admire one of his best physical attributes.

“Only one way to find out," he declared quietly. “Ready?” he asked with an encouraging smile as he glanced at her.

Iris simply nodded just as the couple ahead of them was admitted through the second big door.

(Apparently, guests weren’t searched at these underground events. Only superpowers were forbidden. Cisco had gifted them a few gadgets, and had promised to breach them out if push came to shove.)

The cop fought a triumphant smile when the lady in white looked back and forth between her and Barry and started nodding right away.

But then she tilted her head, scrutinizing Barry, then Iris.

Why wasn’t she asking them any questions? Was she going to just let them through? 

“Kiss,” the redhead instructed, the one syllable so clearly and simply delivered that it took a moment for Iris’ brain to process it.

_ What?! _

* * *

Had he been in a humorous mood, Barry would’ve thought of later reminding Iris of how he had promised her a kiss on their third date the day of their reunion. The charity dinner (he’d almost forgotten that one) and the night at ‘Rogues’ definitely counted as their first and second dates.

As it was, Barry was trying very hard no to panic internally as the psychic gauged their reaction to her instruction.

“That’s it? You just want us to kiss?” he asked with a cheeky smile before Iris could react.

She was frozen at his arm, completely immobile but for the measured movement of her chest.

“Kiss,” the red-haired woman simply repeated, and Barry squeezed the arm Iris had around his before turning around to face her, holding both of her wrists when her arms dropped to her sides.

He lifted his eyebrows to silently asked her if she wanted to abort the mission, and she rolled her eyes in response.

_ "Don't be ridiculous, of course not," _ she seemed to say.

So he gently squeezed her wrists before bringing his hands up to her face. He couldn’t quite help rubbing his thumbs across her cheekbones, nor could he help smiling when he felt the skin of her face warm up even as she let out a soft exhale and relaxed her shoulders a tad bit.

He guessed that placing her hands on his waist was her signal that she was ready, so he bent over, slowly bringing his face down to hers, and he quickly lost himself in the way her eyelids fluttered shut when she tilted her head up.

Barry had dreamed of kissing Iris West _so_ _many times_ that he focused on realizing his dream and forgot about the soulmate test, the redhead examiner and the couples waiting for their turn behind them. He was determined to have reality _outshine_ his best fantasy.

He skimmed the tip of his nose along the bridge of hers and used the index and middle fingers of both hands to massage the skin behind her ears, relishing the quiet hum Iris made and the way the fingers of her free hand gripped him a little tighter.

Barry pressed the lightest kiss to her slightly pinched brow, closing his own eyes once he was certain that he'd committed every inch of her face to memory. He let his lips slowly travel from her forehead to her eyelids, then one cheekbone, and then the other.

Iris breathed out a quiet moan of impatience that forced him to pause for a few seconds, his forehead resting against hers as his mind ordered his body to _ calm the fuck down _ because this was their first kiss and he wasn't going to _ rush it _ even though Iris herself was tempting him to do that. 

“Come on in. Next,” someone said, and Barry felt Iris’ eyelashes brush his face as the two of them opened their eyes at the same time, his surprise mirrored in her brown gaze.

“What?” he asked quietly as he reluctantly pulled away from Iris but left his hands on her face.

“You passed,” the woman in white deliberated flatly. “Next,” she then repeated.

But, _ but _…They hadn’t even kissed? 

“This way,” an usher in an impeccable white suit and a golden mask indicated the double doors behind the redhead.

Barry moved only because Iris did. He was still processing the fact that his perfect first kiss with her had been _ interrupted _.

“Welcome to heaven,” two women in flowy white dresses and golden masks chimed in harmony on the other side of the gold-covered wood.

(Was white and gold the staff uniform?)

Beyond it, stairs of white marble and golden railing welcomed them, and when they ascended to the open floor upstairs, everything was white, silver, and gold. Any other color came from the guests’ clothes, most specifically the ladies’ dresses.

“Which religion claims that heaven is a blindingly luxurious place where criminals indulge in gourmet hors d’oeuvre and champagne?” Iris asked sarcastically as she looked around. “The restroom area is this way.”

Restroom? Oh, right. They had to check in with Cisco.

There actually had been no physical search imposed to the guests before they walked into the building. It seemed that the king and queen of crime weren't worried about mundane weapons. What they were afraid of were meta-human powers, Barry was reminded as he eyed a few people wearing the same power-suppressing bracelets he'd seen at Rogues a few days ago. Those had been handed out outside the building doors.

The restroom the two undercover people entered was as luxurious as the ballroom, consisting of a comfortable sitting room furnished with a plush golden loveseat on one side, a white vanity counter and chair on the other, and a ceiling-high mirror on the door leading to the toilet itself.

"Hey Q, do you copy?" Iris asked after she unlinked her arm from Barry's and tapped on her pearly white mask.

Barry also tapped on his mask just as he took out the X-ray scanner his friend had equipped them with.

"Loud and clear, Agent Purple!" the engineer replied cheerfully. "Cool Barry, the scan is loading. By the way, you guys are east of the city, just outside the forest. Dude, this surveillance system was too easy to hack into…Not seeing any trapdoor so far. Yay, I guess."

"Which means that the hard part is yet to come," the cop argued as she propped a foot on the small couch and carelessly flipped up the wide skirt of her floor-length dress, revealing a bare leg strapped with two knife sheaths along with a tiny holster for her taser. Barry gaped as he watched her adjust the holster so the head of the electric weapon faced the back of her thigh.

"_ Huh _, Goldface and Blacksmith aren't as careless as I thought they were," Cisco conceded just as Barry managed to tear his eyes away from Iris and put away the scanner before pulling out a foldable tablet to see the blueprints obtained from the scan and camera feeds that the hacker was sharing with them. 

"This place is huge," Iris commented as she leaned over to check the pictures and videos, her hair cascading over to her right side and leaving the left side of her neck bare.

With the sleeveless, backless, one shoulder tulle dress that she had on tonight, Iris had quite a lot of skin showing, and now that the soulmate test wasn't taking all his focus anymore, Barry had trouble not admiring the skin he so wanted to touch and taste.

"This got to be the auction room," Iris pointed on the screen of the tablet, oblivious to his struggle. "The room next door must be where they store all the items."

Goldface's masked ballroom really was just a disguise for the most prized black market auction in Central City. Since Kenyon didn't actually need the money, it was more of a meet and greet opportunity for criminals who wanted to join his ranks or do business with him—provided that they passed the still unbelievable soulmate test.

Both Iris and Team Flash believed that the weapon used in the district three massacre would be among the auctioned items. Getting their hands on it would greatly help in identifying its manufacturer.

"Like the surveillance system, that potential storage room is easy to break into, but might be difficult to get out of," Cisco warned as he checked the security checkpoints of the area. "But like the rest of this grand place, the vents are big enough for you to get out of the room without needing to bust its door on the way out. All you need to do is exit in an unlocked room."

"Good thing _ I _ took that rope belt then, because the ceilings are at least ten meters high here," Barry pointed out as he grinned at Iris.

She had decided against taking a belt herself, arguing that they wouldn't need such a cliché spy gadget for a mission operated exclusively indoors.

"Can't Barry just make us phase in and out of there?" the cop suggested after rolling her eyes at him. "We already passed the meta-gene detector at the entrance door."

"Yes, the one at the _ entrance _ ," Cisco repeated before he made numerous red dots appear on the reconstructed blueprints. "Every floor _ inside _ the building has no less than five meta-gene detectors. So Barry, don't remove your patch unless you're ready to leave, or unless you want to measure yourself to Goldface."

"Not happening," Iris objected as she tapped her clutch. "If we see Goldface we meta-cuff him and I’ll arrest him."

Barry was still very impressed that Cisco had managed to make handcuffs as thin and light as standard handcuffs.

"Keep in mind that this pair of cuffs is a barely tested prototype," the engineer warned. "Please, _ both of you _, don't try anything risky tonight, not on Goldface's turf. Don't forget that he has his meta-human wife to back him up along with a bunch of goons armed to the teeth. By the way, good job making it in. What question did they ask you for the soulmate test?"

Barry and Iris both cleared their throats and started to answer only to trail off before saying anything meaningful .

They were saved from the awkward moment by Cisco himself when his smartwatch beeped.

"Okay, well, call me if there's an emergency—can't stress it out enough, _ emergency only _. I'm staying over at Cindy's tonight, so…yeah. Oh and don't think that I won't get my answer later on! Quantum out."

Barry and Iris uselessly stared at the tablet for a while before Barry shook himself and folded the tablet in order to slip it back in his pocket. 

"Wait, I didn't memorize the password to the storage room," Iris told him before he could drop the device in his pants. 

"It's okay, I did," he reassured her with a shrug and started walking towards the exit of the restroom.

"What? I want to know it _ too _!" Iris objected as she grabbed his forearm, and Barry was very mindful of the fact that he didn't have his powers to slow his momentum when he spun around and pushed her against the padded wall next to the door—this room was soundproof? Even better. 

"What _ I _ want to know is if you'd let me kiss you now, even though we don't need to pretend to be lovers in here," he confessed quietly into her ear, his voice less controlled than he'd like.

"We're on a _ mission _, Allen," the cop reminded him, her breathy voice failing to be as stern as he was used to. "And don't think that you can just push me around—"

_ Fuck it _, he couldn't stand it anymore.

Knowing fully well that he was risking a punch in the face, Barry tore his mask off, bent over and let his pent up desire fuel the possessive kiss he stole from the woman he loved and who might _ never _ love him back.

He was lucky that she was at least attracted to him, because she actually returned his kiss after freezing up for a second. Her hand climbed up his arm, slid across his shoulder and anchored itself in his hair. 

This was definitely not comparable to the first kiss of his sweet teenage dreams.

No, the feverish nips of lips, the wet sweeps of tongue and the loud intakes of air were akin to the kisses featured in the wet dreams that made the speedster's heart ache in the middle of lonely nights, yet also made him sigh in relief for they were _ heaven _ compared to the revisited memories of all the violence he'd inflicted on people with his own two hands.

His own two hands that had gone back to cupping Iris' face, keeping her exactly where he needed her as they ravaged each other, his fire seemingly feeding hers.

But of course the cop’s common sense doused her flames the moment one of Barry’s hands slipped and brushed her chest. 

She pushed him away, letting out an angry whine when Barry planted his feet so that only a few inches separated them. 

"Try that again without my _ explicit permission _ and I'll use those meta-cuffs on you," she threatened him as she put the hand with her clutch between them.

‘That’? _ Which one? _ The kissing or the touching?

"You do realize that my powers are already suppressed, right?" he pointed out instead before quickly stepping away to avoid her expected right hook.

Iris let out a growl of frustration, but then calmly walked to the vanity and checked her appearance in the mirror. She glared at him through her reflection as she re-applied her lipstick, and he licked off the faint taste of it in response.

"At least be _ useful _ ," she demanded as she flipped her hair this way and that even though she was perfect from head to toe. "Put your mask back on, _ get out _ and find us a table."

"Yes, Sergeant," he acknowledged, chuckling at the way she rolled her eyes at his suggestive tone. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> On the show Barry and Iris have had three very nice first kisses (could be argued that it's five)! This is unfortunately not the right fic for cute first kisses.
> 
> In case you didn't read the title of this chapter, this is your friendly reminder that the slow burn is over. The temperature can only go up going forward. And, oh, don't worry, I'm not boring anyone with more mission stuff, this isn't a spy AU.
> 
> If you would like to read a spy AU West-Allen fic, check out https://archiveofourown.org/works/13266054/chapters/30351423 by the amazing Cee693!!! 
> 
> And please do check out https://archiveofourown.org/works/10238303/chapters/22713740 by the equally amazing Leia_Naberrie if you haven't already. Many elements of my fic are inspired from that one.


	19. Betting On Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Masked ball mission part 2, and the aftermath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: Another long chapter. Sorry!
> 
> I couldn't help but write a chapter to justify next chapter because I'm not sure if the hints I wanted you to notice in the last...Five chapters? were good enough.

The mission went without a hitch at first: after taking careful sips of champagne—Iris hadn’t wished a repeat of the night at ‘Rogues’, and it had seemed that neither had Barry—and sampling delicious bites of foods that were exclusively white, yellow or translucent, Iris and Barry had tiptoed to the staff elevator and had broken into the storage room while everyone was waltzing on the dancefloor.

They’d been right: the massacre weapon was among the items to be auctioned off. Barry had scanned it in case he couldn’t win it at the auction later on—yes, he had _ stolen _ that money, from a jewelry store selling blood diamonds collected by the children of the store owner themselves, who were international mercenaries. Iris didn’t actually mind.

What she did mind was having her body squeezed in tight spaces or pressed against Barry's as they used the vents to exit the storage room (the door had a biometric security system on the inside).

Climbing up into the vents had been a breeze, but because Allen's hand had 'accidentally' slipped to touch Iris' butt on their descent into what looked like a sitting room, their landing had made enough noise to get anyone nearby hear them.

So when the sound of footsteps approached their exit room, the fake soulmates had to play the drunk and horny couple who couldn't keep their hands to themselves, and the two men who barged into the unlocked room 'caught them' sprawled on a wide settee bench. Barry was propped on one forearm above Iris, one hand under her dress, and Iris' own hands were unbuttoning his dress shirt, his tuxedo jacket already on the floor—hiding the rope belt.

Iris didn't have a good view of the door, so at first she was confused and irritated by the fact that Barry actually started _ touching _ her thigh under her dress. 

"Honey, wait—stop!" she requested between giggles and a fake hiccup.

"How did you two get past the security door?" One of the men questioned them coldly.

Iris froze, remembering that indeed, the floor was accessible via either a locked door off the stairs or the elevator, and both required a password.

"I told you that we'd get in trouble for that, baby," Barry stated in a slow, awkward enunciation, his act of the drunk boyfriend quite convincing. 

He crawled away from her, slipping a hand under her back to lift her into a seated position, and only then did Iris realize that he'd removed her taser from its holster with the hand that had been under her dress. 

"Answer the question," the other man demanded, and now the cop understood why Barry had been so quick to arm himself: the two men weren't dressed in the white and gold that the event staff wore. They didn't even have masks.

They were wearing regular clothes, and they had _ guns_. 

"We just needed some privacy, the restrooms were crowded!" Iris lied in a cheerful tone.

The man closest to them—a big guy who reminded Sergeant West of the two Wardrobes at the Darbinyan strip club—took out his gun and pointed it at them.

"Answer. The. Question," he bit out, and his comrade sighed in exasperation.

"Aww, come on guys," Barry replied more soberly but still sounding inebriated, "who do you think we are? _ Everyone _ in this building knows how to reset an electronic keypad lock! If there was anything of importance on this floor, there would've been a biometric system, or what is the cheap one that gives you remote control of the lock?"

"Radio-frequency identification, honey," Iris stage whispered, hiding her mouth behind her hand.

"Yeah, that's the one!" Barry agreed with a vigorous bob of his head before he leaned over to plant a quick kiss on her lips. "You're so smart, baby, that's why I love you."

She let out a throaty hum before leaning up for a longer smooch that he readily accepted.

(The speedster was _ totally _ taking advantage of the situation, but the kiss back was actually a misdirection technique for the undercover cop: it made the guards look away in embarrassed annoyance, which allowed Iris to grab a knife under her dress.)

"Told the boss that these locks were wack," the smaller, less invested thug commented with a shrug. "That's why we're here, anyway."

The big guy narrowed his eyes at the masked couple, then nodded before slipping his gun back into its holster.

"There is a nice lounging area on the second floor," the friendlier thug informed them as he pointed down at the floor. "You soulmates are free to get frisky there. This floor is for the auction."

"Oooh," Iris and Barry said in unison, and Iris barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes at how dumb they sounded.

"Well we'll definitely be back, then," Barry declared as he stood up and pulled Iris along, using her body to hide the hand holding her taser.

The cop herself held her knife against her clutch to conceal it as they walked past Wardrobe.

They were almost out the door, the smaller guard already back in the hallway, when Wardrobe called out to Barry.

"Sir, don't forget your jacket…What the—"

Iris didn't have time to be impressed by the fact that Barry was quite fast even without his superpowers.

She quickly flattened herself against the wall so that when Barry tased Wardrobe, his partner rushed into the room not knowing that she was waiting for him.

She put her knife to his throat before he could take out his gun.

"You make a sound and I cut your windpipe," she whispered in his ear, and felt a tad bit sympathetic when the thug raised shaky hands in the air.

(Of course he was taking her seriously, most if not all attendees of this event were people who wished to be part of the entourage of the ruthless king and queen of crime.)

Iris was borrowing that line from a cruel contraband and drug dealer who had threatened _ her _ during her first and only undercover mission with SCU. 

Corporal West had blown her cover as a stripper after weeks of being convincing as a pretty damn good dancer. Had Dinah Drake not also been part of the operation, Iris might not have left that strip club unscathed.

"Honey, bring the rope," she instructed Barry, and she cut part of the thick wire to tie up the guard. 

She covered the thugs' mouths with their own emptied gun belts, and would've taken one of the firearms for herself had Barry not grimaced in disapproval.

She let out an expletive when they faced none other than Silvertongue himself at the elevator.

"I'm guessing you two are the ones Pam told me about," he told them calmly before pressing some key on the elevator pad. "Two soulmates who haven't consummated their love yet, is what she claims you are. She finds it cute, but I find it suspicious. Is it because you're cops_ ? _ Frat rules cockblocking you, mate?" The man wearing a silver mask and suit asked when he locked gaze with Barry. 

"I'm not a cop," Allen corrected him before lurching forward, taser forward.

Iris gasped in shock when the powerless speedster ran into an invisible electric wall, shouting in pain as he got electrocuted.

"I hope that he's not dead, I'd like to interrogate him eventually," Silvertongue asserted from inside the elevator. 

Iris kneeled next to her undercover partner to ask if he was okay, worried at his unresponsiveness but not daring to touch him in case there was enough current still coursing through his body to shock her too.

The sound of multiple footsteps made her stand back up and run towards the staircase door to kick the thug who opened it, sending him and the guy behind him on the floor.

She took the gun right off the holster of the third man, whose shock made him pause for a few seconds.

"Close the door," she ordered him, and she shot at the keypad once he obeyed.

As she expected, the damaged security system triggered a backup lockdown.

(And an alarm that sounded like the meta-gene detector going off like crazy).

"Impressive," Silvertongue complimented when Sergeant West returned by Barry's side, hoping he was going to be okay as she kept her eyes on Goldface's right hand.

"_You've _ got to be a cop," the crime boss guessed. "So tell me, how is it that you and your civilian lover here haven't done the deed yet? Waiting for marriage?"

"Who said that I'm a civilian?" The vibrating voice of The Flash said before Barry moved super fast, Iris only seeing his red lightning snap in the air before she heard a scream.

She blinked as she saw that the elevator car had gone down without the doors closing.

"I hope that he's not dead," the dark speedster parroted after the floor shook from the impact of the elevator car crash. "I want you to get a promotion for arresting him."

He'd removed his mask and was vibrating from head to toe, his silhouette barely discernible.

"Have you lost your mind?" the cop couldn't help but shout once she recovered from her relief and shock. "How are we going to get out now, since the door is also—"

She yelped when the door in question was torn off from its hinges, right after turning its color turned from white to _gold_.

Uh oh.

"Flash!" The woman Sergeant West assumed was Amunet Black exclaimed as she stepped ahead of her husband, Goldface.

(And ahead of all the thugs Iris had locked out. From where the cop was standing, it seemed that there were exactly _too many_ of them.)

"We were wondering if you'd come!" The queen of crime admitted cheerfully as she opened a container strapped to her waist belt.

In Iris' honest opinion, that belt ruined the nice look Blacksmith had going with her long black bodycon dress and golden jewelry, but eccentricity seemed to be usual for her: instead of a mask she had purple warpaint on, and her hair was dyed the same blue color as Iris' dress...

Wait. 

Goldface and Blacksmith had been _expecting_ Barry? That couldn't be good.

"And who's your soulmate here?" the female meta asked nicely as she appraised Iris while pieces of metal started _floating out_ of the container.

Sergeant West couldn't help but note how unbothered, and even _bored_ Keith Kenyon looked. He was leaning against the door frame, seemingly happy to let his wife do the talking and the fighting _alone_.

"What's your power, sweetie?" The queen of Central City's criminal world asked the only cop in a building full of dangerous criminals.

Not that it was Iris' primary concern. Her concern was that CCPD didn't truly understand how dangerous the criminals they were supposedly _hunting down_ were.

Iris startled when the shards of metal started moving faster, but she didn't get to answer or even worry about Blacksmith' power, because Barry sped her away from the place. 

When the world stopped rushing around her, the cop found herself standing in a living room she had been before. 

The one in _ Barry's apartment. _

"Right," she commented after stepping away from the speedster, blinking in surprise that the gun was gone from her hand, replaced by the clutch that she had dropped in the middle of the action. "Thanks," she added with a long sigh, "I gotta admit that seeing Goldface and Blacksmith together scared the hell out of me."

"Really?" Barry questioned with a raise of his eyebrows."You were pretty badass back there."

"And for a moment you looked pretty _ dead_," the cop remembered as she looked him up and down after taking off her mask, dropping it on the coffee table next to her taser—nice, he’d picked that up too.

"Are you immune to electricity or something?" she asked him, genuinely curious.

"Nope," Allen answered before removing his jacket and shaking off his left arm then picking out a burned square of paper from inside his sleeve cuff. "I just got lucky that my powers kicked in. The electrocution fried my patch, so the drug suppressing my powers stopped working."

"Oh," Iris reacted, trying to keep her concern off her face and voice. "Alright, that's great."

Shouldn't he check in with Dr. Snow, though? To Iris' knowledge he wasn't invincible, so there could be side effects to his electrocution. It wasn't so late at night that his friend wouldn't pick up an emergency phone call.

Iris' concern flew right out the window a second later when she got pressed into a wall _ yet again_.

"Would you _ stop _ manhandling me?" She requested in exasperation, shaking her head to get her hair out of her eyes.

"If we can have an honest discussion in the next five minutes, this is the last time I'll ever corner you like that, pinky promise," was the speedster's humorous response even as he kept his hold on her shoulders unmovable.

"You're calling me a _ liar_, Allen?" Iris questioned, peeved by his word choice. "When have I ever been _ dishonest _ with you?"

"Not dishonest…'secretive' maybe," he conceded.

The cop glared at him, unimpressed.

"You heard what Silvertongue said about us, right?" He asked, and Iris' heartbeat started picking up again.

She'd shoved _that_ _part_ to the back of her mind to focus on the hostile situation. Just like she'd ignored the implication of her and Barry passing that soulmates test.

_If_ it was a legit test.

"About us being soulmates who don’t fuck?" She recalled, deliberately using crude language to hide how affected she’d been by those words. "That _ disproves _ your theory that the examiner is a psychic. She was just picking people based on what she liked. You were hesitant about kissing me, so she _ imagined _ that we were platonic lovers or something. She took pity on us and let us through! I mean, that older couple seemed legit but she rejected them, so maybe Goldface told her to weed out criminals who’ve been in the game longer than him.”

“I was _ hesitant _ about kissing you?” Barry repeated, his eyes wide with disbelief.

Iris opened her mouth to point out that he had taken his sweet time to comply with the instruction—it had felt _ frighteningly _ amazing, that tenderness and _ patience _ he had used—but he stole another kiss from her before she could say anything.

This one wasn’t as forceful as the one in the fancy restroom, and Iris reciprocated it yet again, but this time it was a calculated move.

She pushed up on her toes to get a better angle, and he accommodated her by bending down and tilting his face, his hands dropping to her waist to carefully hold her close as their mouths fused.

Iris let herself get lost in the kiss, in the warm and more controlled possessiveness of his mouth, in the dizzying scent of his cologne mixed with sweat and that faint burned smell from his electrocution, and in the hushed but unmistakable sound of his powers, the sound of lightning gathering before it struck.

She let herself savor this moment, because Barry was a good kisser, and because she didn’t need her conscious mind to pull a move she had mastered even before she enrolled in the police academy. Something she could do with her eyes closed and her heart wondering _what the hell was going on, kissing had never felt that way!_

And yes, Barry was a good kisser, but so was _Iris_. She’d always been able to take control of intimate moments without her boyfriends realizing, had always been able to guide their hands to exactly where she wanted them on her body without saying a word—

_ Click. _

Barry pulled away from her, their lips disconnecting with a soft wet sound, and he looked down at the meta-cuffs around his wrists with utter confusion.

“Please tell me that you did that because you’re into kinky sex,” he whispered as he looked back at her.

“Do you see any purple faux fur on these?” she asked rhetorically before shoving him away with the hand that was holding her opened clutch.

Bless Cisco and his completely functional prototype.

“_Iris_, come on!” Barry whined as his eyes followed her around the living room until she lowered herself on a chair. 

The adrenaline that had fueled her body since their fall from the vent was fully depleted now that the mission was over, not quite successful but not a failure either.

That ball chair was really comfortable, it was quite wide and too high for her legs to touch the hardwood floor, which made sense since it had been set for Allen’s long legs.

The last time Iris had been in this apartment, Iris had been too ashamed and hungover to realize that the meta-human criminal who had started as a thief lived in a modest (yet cozy) place.

Shelving her worry for what she'd seen during the mission, Sergeant West took off her heels, removed the sheaths and holster strapped to her leg, and accurately threw them on the table next to her mask and taser.

Now, for a change of clothes… 

* * *

“Don’t you have mint tea?” Iris innocently asked him from the kitchen, and Barry scowled.

Don’t get him wrong, he was _ relieved _ that she seemed comfortable enough in his presence to stay over and have tea, especially because he’d feared that she would leave his apartment without giving him the key to the cuffs.

His fear was justified, okay? His first and only other experience with handcuffs had involved him being stuck to the headboard of his then girlfriend’s bed—hours _ after _ the sex, with a terrible hangover to boot. Beverly Lewis was a passionate and eccentric writer, the stereotype of a ‘free spirit’. After initiating Barry to kinky sex, she’d locked herself up in her office to write twenty pages of her overdue draft on a story he never bothered to read…even though he'd bought a copy to show his support when the novel got published months later. They’d already broken up, but Beverly had guilt-tripped him into purchasing her work. 

God, why did he have to be reminded of his _ worst girlfriend _ when he was in the presence of his _ soulmate? _

True, Barry had spat on the idea of _ destined lovers_, but he’d later on discovered that it wasn’t the definition of soulmates. Soulmates were just partners, platonic or romantic, who were ideally suited for each other.

Who was more suited for one of the most dangerous meta-human criminals of Central City than one of its best MFU cops? Anyone else would've freaked out being in a building full of criminals. Iris had admitted to being scared of Blade and Glitter, but Barry himself hadn't been too comfortable with the fact that the criminal royal pair had been so comfortable facing _him, the fastest man alive._

A worry for another time. Right now Barry wanted to know about his future with Iris.

_ A forbidden affair,_ Dinah Drake had named his potential relationship with the MFU cop, and Cisco had qualified it as _ epic_.

But really, if even Ronnie and Caitlin, the most perfect couple in the world—they had _ complementary powers_, for fuck’s sake—said that Iris was Barry’s soulmate, then he shouldn’t really argue.

“It’s okay, chamomile is my second favorite,” Iris let him know as she returned to the living room with a steaming mug, looking cozy and just _ adorable _ in one of his t-shirts, a v-neck that she had to constantly adjust so the collar wouldn’t slip off her shoulder.

She placed her mug on the coffee table, using one of her knife belts as a coaster—another way Iris complemented him, the way a soulmate would: she seemed like the messy type, and Barry was a neat freak—then perched herself on his ball chair after unfolding _ his _ tablet to look at the scan of the weapon they’d gone to the ball for.

“Aren’t you going to sit down?” the cop asked him without looking up from the screen.

“Not until we have our honest discussion,” he insisted stubbornly.

Iris sighed, but put the tablet on sleep mode and looked up at him.

“Barry, that woman _ isn’t _ a psychic,” she denied with a soft shake of her head, the few curls that had escaped her hair tie swaying with the movement. “We’re _ not _soulmates. The test was phoney.”

“If the test was phoney, then how come Silvertongue _ and _ Blacksmith called us soulmates?” he questioned, opening wide the palms of his joined hands. “Silvertongue was genuinely curious about the reason why we haven’t yet ‘consummated our love’.”

“I don’t love you,” Iris deadpanned, and before tonight Barry would’ve believed her.

But she had kissed him back, _ twice, _ and while this could be attributed to simple physical attraction, Barry didn’t believe that’s all she felt for him.

_ "Maybe in another life, Barry and I…" _

He’d only internalized the interpretation of that sentence: that she wouldn’t be with him in this life because of their circumstances, him being a criminal and her being a cop.

But Barry had completely overlooked the _ implication _ of her words: that she _ could _ see herself with him, that if it hadn’t been for the present obstacles to their romance, she _ would _ be with him.

Most importantly, she hadn’t denied the man in yellow’s claim that Barry was _ her love interest_.

Barry wasn’t crazy. This wasn’t him being _ delusional _ about his chance to be with Iris. He’d always been realistic about that.

But Iris wasn’t a liar _ either. _ So maybe…

“Have you ever been in love, Iris?” he asked her as neutrally as he could.

“The hell? Of course I have,” was her outraged answer, which was accompanied with a furious eyeroll. 

“Who was it?” the speedster kept going.

“Why, so you could _ kill him_?” she replied harshly. “That wouldn’t help in making me love you any more than killing my team leader did.”

“Alright, I don’t need to know a name,” Barry conceded, refusing to let the subject of her colleague’s death set him back.

He _ wasn’t _ crazy. He could feel the panic behind Iris’ hostility.

She might be having her own epiphany right there.

“A time frame, then? How long were you in love with the guy?” he inquired as he took a step towards her.

“I don’t owe you the answer to this question!” she almost shouted, and Barry could see a lost battle when he saw one.

But he’d won a war against _ aliens_, so he wasn’t going to give up on this without giving all he had.

A change of strategy was in order.

“Alright, that’s fair,” he declared with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “And of course you don’t love me. Sorry, it was dumb of me to imply that. I’ve always known that my feelings were unrequited, I've known since high school.”

“I _ didn’t know _ that you liked me then!” she defended herself, sounding apologetic.

Trying to make her feel sympathy for his pitiful seventeen year old self was low, but Barry was _ desperate. _

After getting a taste of what they could be at the ball, there was no way that he could just _ wait _ for her to acknowledge the feelings she very possibly had for him. He'd warned her that he was impatient.

He needed more than a kiss, and he needed it _ now, _ before Iris went home and built back her walls or Barry started double guessing himself. 

Feelings didn’t have to be involved on her side at this stage of their relationship. He had more than enough on his side to get things started.

“You weren’t attracted to me then,” he recalled without malice. “But you are _ now_.”

Iris rolled her eyes again.

“I’m a cop, Allen, not _ blind_," she talked back with a hand gesture towards his body. “You’re an attractive man, of course I’m—”

“I’m a pretty good sex partner too,” he blurted out, trying to keep his cool in what was definitely one of his lamest moments—Barry had been bullied for years, so he _ knew _ about lameness.

Iris blinked at him. Once. Twice. Three times.

“You think _ good dick _ is going to make me fall for you, speedster?” she mocked him. “You’re an idiot.”

Was he supposed to feel down by the insult? The joke was on her, because one of Barry's fantasies was to hear Iris talk dirty to him, and the ease with which she'd thrown 'good dick' suggested that she had it in her.

“I was actually going to offer oral for a test run,” he suggested in a very serious tone, “but I’m fine with whatever you’d prefer.”

He maintained a poker face even as the cop gaped at him, her beautiful eyes comically wide, and no, he was _ not _ imagining _ anything _ about her wide open mouth…

“Come on, Iris,” he coaxed her a bit, tilting his head as he appraised her position on the ball chair.

Of course it would work _ perfectly_, the height had been adjusted for his legs.

“When was the last time you had a good orgasm?” he kept pushing, and she finally snapped her jaw shut before scowling.

“Like I need anyone to have a good orgasm!” she argued. “I have my own hands and toys!”

“I can vibrate any part of my body,” he pointed out, hoping that Cisco _never _ heard about this, but the truth was the truth. “And I have _ bigger _ hands.”

He winced internally when Iris frowned deeply. Too much?

“Then isn't it a shame that _ right now _ your hands are tied and you can’t use your powers, Flash?” Iris pointed out as she crossed her arms over her chest, smirking in satisfaction.

_ What? _

Sure, it was too bad he couldn’t use his hands or powers right this moment, but…

Did this mean that she was _ agreeing _ to him giving her head? Was he dreaming?

No, this was _ reality, _ and a pretty damn good opportunity to fulfill another big fantasy of his, so Barry wasn’t going to let it pass him by.

“Not a problem,” he announced as he walked with purpose towards Iris, remaining confident even as uncertainty brushed her facial features.

“Now? _ Here? _ We should at least—” she started objecting, but got immediately quiet when he kneeled at her feet.

Exactly where he belonged. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Were the hints about Iris obvious or do they only stand out now?
> 
> By the way, this isn't the last of Silvertongue and Goldface/Blacksmith!


	20. I Wanna Scream And Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Picking up right where we left, plus a flashback.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for explicit sex? In case you hadn't noticed the rating of this fic lol.  
Barry's POV is mostly crime solving plus a connection to the flashback that I'm quite proud of.  
This chapter is a bit long but it's mostly West-Allen so I hope that you'll enjoy!
> 
> Chapter title from "Primetime" by Janelle Monae (feat. Miguel).

Iris had first justified it in her head with the fact that she and Barry needed to go over the mission, have an informal debrief before she herself reported to Dinah the next day.

And really, she had been exhausted, so if she had gone home for a solo review of what she had learned from the mission—she had more questions than anything, to be honest—she would’ve just passed out on her couch. 

So the cop had reasoned that staying around Barry would keep her on her toes. But not _ make her toes curl _. 

The last half hour had been an emotional roller coaster for Iris: she had felt cocky about handcuffing the fastest man alive, then had been pleasantly surprised by how comfortable she found herself with him when the threat of his powers weren’t a source of concern—not that he’d ever used them against her except to corner her against a wall, but they were what enabled his _ criminal _ activity. His clear dislike of guns and even knives suggested that he wouldn’t have been a killer without his speed.

All had been well, until Barry had upturned her world by bringing up the soulmate thing instead of agreeing to go over the mission.

And just when panic had started to set, because maybe, maybe Iris did _ care _ about the speedster more than she would like—and what did that say about her, that she would have feelings for a serial killer, for someone who’d killed her own team leader?—Barry had then backpedaled and accepted that she didn’t have feelings for him…Then he’d thrown his proposition to have casual sex at her.

Iris had immediately thought of Kendra’s words last year. It had been a crazy idea, and Iris had sworn not to ever bring it up to Barry, and she _ hadn’t. _ He’d been the one to suggest that they fuck with no string attached…

His claim that he’d be able to give her a ‘good orgasm’ was really what got Iris curious.

She was far from being inexperienced in the art of pleasure. However short her total of five relationships had been, they’d been full of good sex. So she hadn’t expected to be wowed by a sexual partner ever again.

But ‘wow’ was exactly what had come to mind when Barry walked close and kneeled on the carpet next to the ball chair she was seated cross-legged.

_ The Flash_, one of the most powerful people of the city (arguably of the _ world _ ) and a decidedly top red-lister for law enforcers…That man had kneeled at _ her feet_, practically begging her to allow him to give her a 'good orgasm’.

Was it normal, or was something wrong with Iris, that she found that move incredibly_ arousing_? 

Because that’s what she was right now, _aroused_, even as the logical part of her was arguing that sleeping with Barry would be the worst mistake of her life. 

_ I know I’m going to regret this_, she thought to herself as she kept staring at Barry’s tied wrists. _ But better that than regret _ not _ doing it. _

“Iris,” Barry called out softly with that seductive tone that always made her want to literally crawl out of her skin because her body was too weak to resist it.

“What?” was her knee-jerk reflex, but when Barry lifted an eyebrow in confusion she immediately hid her lips behind her fingers then started over: “I mean, yes?” 

“I need you to open your legs for me,” he requested calmly before leaning over to brush his lips against the exposed skin of her left knee.

“I, uh…” she tried to reply when she looked at him, but couldn’t finish her train of thought as he looked at her with a mixture of lust and adoration in his green eyes, his lips stretched in a smile that was impossibly smug and grateful at the same time.

“No rush,” he whispered but all the same he shuffled on his knees to fully face her, and when he lowered himself on his heels, he was exactly at mouth level with her crotch.

The next minute or so passed in a daze as Iris scooted back in the deep chair to shimmy out of her underwear, then she slid back to the edge of the spherical piece of furniture, easily hooking her legs over Barry's shoulders, using that anchor as support to remove her t-shirt—_his _ t-shirt—while her ass was balancing at the end of the seat.

The look on Barry's face as he took her in was a major turn on itself, but then he lifted back up on his knees. That made Iris slowly slid backward in the chair while her thighs opened as wide as his shoulders. Iris blushed furiously as the speedster eyed her exposed and already damp pussy, and breathed out a quiet 'fuck'.

Before she started feeling too self-conscious about being naked while Barry was still fully clothed, he bent over to kiss the underside of her bare breasts, then her belly, then her hip bone… By the time he lowered back down on his haunches to run his nose along her inner thighs, Iris had fully leaned against the back of the chair, drunk on the thrill of anticipation, one hand in Barry's hair while the other was flattened against the inner wall of the spherical piece of furniture.

The first nips of the speedster's mouth on her outer lips were pleasantly stimulating but not overwhelming, so Iris made sure to hum in approval at his approach.

Three of her former lovers had used cunnilingus as a quick warmup or a finisher, rather than as an independent sexual act. The other two had surprised Iris quite a few times by going down on her without expecting anything in return.

(Luckily for them, Iris liked to give back what she got, though she was better-versed in handjobs than in blowjobs.)

Iris didn't reign in the short quiet noises of appreciation that came out of her as she enjoyed the steady pressure of Barry's lips on her entire groin area, which was a first for her.

It was exactly when she noticed that he hadn't used much of his tongue after over ten minutes that he gave her a long, hot and wide lap of his tongue that parted her outer lips, going up to her clit then circling down to slip inside her and suck off the sudden flow of her juices.

"Oh fuck, Barry!" Iris moaned loudly, tightening her grip on his head to keep him where he was quickly driving her crazy with pleasure, the warm wet pressure on her center making her run her own mouth.

"Yes Barr—Oh! That's so fucking good, right there, yes that feels so good baby…Aaah," her speech quickly turned incoherent when Barry sucked on her clit, then licked her inner labia, then dipped his tongue in her again, only this time added a little mundane vibration by humming against her.

That got Iris close to climax quite abruptly after the gradual warmup, but when she was about to peak—

"No no no don't stop why did you stop…" she rambled on when Barry eased off of her pussy, returning to kissing her mons and hip bone before going right back to working her up, then down again, always making her climb but never letting her reach nirvana.

Iris locked his head between her thighs and tried to rub herself on his mouth, but with her ass off the seat and her legs hanging off Barry's shoulders she didn't have enough leverage to get the friction she needed.

By the time Barry stopped edging her, she was practically _ sobbing _ , half in frustration half from exquisite delirium as her nerve endings tingled from all those close calls. Then her toes started curling again and finally, _ finally _ Allen kept licking and sucking her clit without letting up.

Iris was so shocked by the ferocity of her orgasm that she let go of Barry's hair from fear of gripping it too tightly. As her back arched up she propped both hands against the cooler metallic walls of the chair in a vain attempt to stay grounded when the speedster’s ministrations metaphorically shoved her off the cliff and into the deep waters of ecstasy.

She definitely felt like she had _ drowned _ because breathing became a battle as her orgasm lasted for longer than she thought possible.

The first cohesive thought that came to her as her lungs reclaimed their rights to oxygen was to wonder if she had smothered Barry with her thighs around his head. 

The second thought was another question: had she had gained the power to levitate? Because that out of body sensation she’d only experienced briefly a few other times before was persisting well after her toes had uncurled and the full-body tingling had abated.

The gentle, soothing pressure of Barry's lips on her inner thighs eventually helped her feel like a normal human being again.

"You can go ahead and be smug, speedster," she told him as she propped herself up on her elbows to look down at him. "That _ was _ a good org—" 

The sight of him between her legs rendered her speechless: hair in disarray, eyes glazed over, cheeks as red as his swollen wet lips, and his chin was still partially coated with her juices.

He looked _ debauched _and Iris didn’t know what to do with the shallow pride she felt knowing that she was responsible for that.

She _ did _ know what to do about the way he was squirming on the floor, the movement of his tied hands obvious even though she couldn't see past his shoulders.

She could untie him and let him take care of his own pleasure, but _ revenge _ was so much sweeter, wasn't it?

* * *

_ This is real, this is real…Fuck yeah, this is real_, Barry chanted in his head as his breath returned to a rhythm that didn't feel like he was having a panic attack, and the thought almost ruined his mood because it reminded him of one impromptu therapy session in college, when he'd had a real panic attack after over hearing a complete stranger at the cafeteria recount an encounter with a bear while camping.

_ Bear_. His mother used to call him that.

But right before Barry could feel sorry for his twenty-year old self, his endorphins-high brain provided a much more recent memory: _ Iris _ calling him Bear. 

It was likely that she simply hadn't been able to pronounce the final vowel of his name and had said 'Barr' rather than 'Bear', but Barry's decision center seemed happy to rewire his neural network to now have 'shortness of breath' and 'hearing bear' trigger the memory of eating Iris out.

The speedster didn't question the improbability of having a short-term memory supplant a long-term one on such a complex brain pathway (Caitlin would tell him that he needed at least a long-term memory of Iris to subconsciously connect her to his childhood nickname). He'd always known deep inside that being with Iris would make everything better, right? His persevering feelings for her were totally justified.

Barry sighed in deep contentment on the carpet of his living room, arms stretched overhead and hands still tied together by the meta-cuffs. His shirt was wide open, the fabric pooling around him on the floor, and his pants and underwear were halfway down his legs.

He would get uncomfortable with the drying semen on his belly very soon, but for now he was basking in the afterglow of the orgasm Iris had almost _ killed him _ with.

No doubt she'd thought it fair to edge him as mercilessly as he had done to her, but really it hadn't been_ fair_: he'd had to work with just his mouth whereas she'd used her mouth _ and _ hands on his dick and she'd rubbed herself all over him, had even let him suck on her breasts when he'd worried about disturbing his neighbors with his loud moans.

When he felt the faint movement of feet coming from the other side of the room, Barry let his head loll in that direction to watch Iris emerge from the bathroom, his t-shirt back on her small frame. 

She had a damp towel in one hand, and swiftly picked out the key of the meta-cuffs as she walked by the coffee table before sitting by him on the floor.

He resisted the urge to kiss her neck as she leaned over him to unlock the cuffs, instead he held still in order not to startle her as his powers flared up once he was free from his bonds.

“We’ve had your ‘discussion’, Barry,” she said with a pointed look once he’d sped through cleaning up and putting his pants back on. “We need to talk about the mission _ now _, before I lose more brain cells. Yes, that’s an indirect praise to your sexual prowess, but don’t let it get to your head.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he lied blatantly with a cheshire smile.

“I thought I’d recognized this design,” the SWAT officer commented a couple minutes after they’d scrutinized the 3D scan of the special weapon. “That power source right here, I’ve seen it from a tech manufacturer that was knee deep in contraband back when I was with SCU. What was the name? It’s two words and sounds like it should be a plumbing company…or a musical company? Wow, that's a terrible association. Anyways, I thought that it had gone out of business two years ago…Thanks to _ you, _actually.”

“Me?” he asked as he looked back at the picture of the elaborated weapon. “I don’t remember ever getting rid of shipments of counterfeit electronics before.”

“You didn’t put them out of business because you directly destroyed their shipment,” Iris corrected him with a quick head shake. “You put them out of business because you killed their main investors: Jeffrey McMillan.”

“Oh?” Barry reacted, surprised to find more dirt on the dead politician.

“It’s not common knowledge because that company was based in Star City,” the cop informed him as she switched the angles of the projection. “McMillan was known for exclusively supporting local businesses and being a gun lobbyist. I only found out because I was trying to find a connection between him and you, and that’s all there was. You went to SCU—oh.”

“Yeah, the first time I heard SCU I thought it was my alma mater, not the Snart Contraband Unit,” Barry recounted. “Funny that we can both claim ties to an SCU,” he added with a smile that she returned shyly.

“So yeah, maybe McMillan was funding the tech company because they’d been working on this gun for him?” Iris resumed. “Then when McMillan dropped out of the picture someone else took over, weirdly not Goldface. Would've bet on it but Silvertongue’s ledger only has records of the purchase of two guns shortly after the district three massacre. Two guns: one for the auction and probably one for Silvertongue himself since he doesn’t have powers—wait.”

“What?” Barry asked, so far able to follow the former contraband cop’s reasoning.

“One, who did that tech company associate with to create this weapon? One fact that I’ve always found funny in the illegal trade world is how high tech people and arms traffickers don’t mix. Arms traffickers are old school, they have dogs instead of modern security systems. Cell phones are the only pieces of technology that they tolerate. So there has to be a middle man between the tech company that made the power source and whoever designed the gun itself—”

“Or whoever designed the gun is actually into tech too,” Barry hypothesized as pieces of an unsolved puzzle from two years ago finally came together. “Say, that tech company, it wouldn’t be called Pied Piper by any chance?”

“Yeah, that’s the name!” Iris confirmed. “How did you know? It’s nowhere near the level of Ramon Industries, that has to be why they were into counterfeit…”

Fucking Hartley, _he _was the one selling Palmer’s tech on the black market?

But _ why? _ That was way too risky: Hartley’s father, Osgood Rathaway, was very strict and anal about his public image. If he caught wind of Hartley’s illegal activities, he’d disown his only child!

Unless…Unless he already _ had _disowned him? 

The outdated hearing aid, the move to Star City but not coming back home after giving up on Ray Palmer…_ Holy shit. _

Barry sped to his room and retrieved his laptop, absentmindedly apologizing to Iris for startling her as he opened up the page of a blog that was Central City’s trusted source for all news concerning the public lives of the city’s elite.

“What are you looking for?” Iris questioned him.

“Proof, because Cisco and Caitlin would never believe anything I say about Rathaway,” the speedster replied, looking up news about Hartley for the past three years.

Nothing other than him and Sydney Palmer becoming an item in 2013…That was _all,_ in three years? _ Something else _ must have happened. Something explaining why Osgood and Rachel Rathaway hadn’t appeared in public with their son since 2012…

“Shit!” Barry cursed out loud.

“What?” the cop asked, her tone more demanding this time.

“Hartley Rathaway,” the speedster started, “yes, the sole heir of Rathaway Industries…Or so we all believe him to be. I think his parents disowned him after finding out that he's a meta, so he created Pied Piper to make money without needing his parents’ connections. Pied Piper was his username on all the online games he played when he was bored—”

“No way,” Iris reacted quietly. “Are you sure?”

“He’s Cisco and Caitlin’s close friend from S.T.A.R. Labs,” Barry explained. “The guy's a natural douchebag, but he used to be fiercely loyal to Cisco, yet after the particle accelerator explosion, he bailed on us and moved to Star City. He’s the one who helped Ray Palmer make the very first meta-cuffs.”

“I always wondered how Palmer was the first to come up with anti-meta tech all the way from Star City,” the MFU cop admitted. “Why would Rathaway do that, though? Didn’t he know that you had become a criminal, and could get arrested thanks to his contribution to anti-meta tech?”

“_We’re _ not friends so he wouldn’t have cared,” Barry let her know. “But that he betrayed Cisco was surprising, it still is to me now considering that he got no money out of it. Palmer _ donated _ the meta-cuffs and stun guns.” 

“What if Hartley Rathaway was trying to earn his parents’ trust back?” the cop speculated. “That’s his _ family _ Barry. Anyone would try to mend bridges, one way or another. If he showed them that he was a _ good _ meta by helping the police arrest the bad ones…”

“He was probably more distraught about being ‘smart, handsome and _ poor’ _ ,” Barry quoted. “No wonder he despises me. I lost my parents’ fortune because I was dumb enough to blindly lend it all to Cisco. It was my own fault. _ He _ didn’t deserve to lose his financial security overnight. Clearly the stunt with Ray Palmer didn’t work out, so he decided to make easy money by using Palmer's twin brother to build his own empire. In 2014 Cisco and I found out that a whole shipment of stun guns had made it to the black market, and the money trail traced back to Sydney Palmer. Hartley himself said that it wouldn’t make sense that his boyfriend would do shady business since he didn’t need the money. But _ he _ does. That asshole _ lied to me _ about not knowing what was happening!”

“Okay!” Iris exclaimed loudly, and Barry noticed that he had raised his voice first.

“Sorry,” he apologized, and Iris shrugged.

"That's one mystery solved," she commented. "What about Goldface and Blacksmith expecting you at their ball?"

“I’m not surprised that the royal couple of crime was expecting me,” Barry admitted. “I’ve been pretty obvious in messing up their partners’ businesses. What concerns me is_ the calm _ with which they were facing me. I’m a _ speedster. _How did _ they _ think they could defeat me?”

“Now I’m hoping that you actually killed Silvertongue,” Iris blurted out. “Blacksmith assumed that I’m a meta, but _ he _ guessed that I’m a cop. There are quite a few female police officers with my stature, but how many can be connected with The Flash? If Scott Evans had heard the rumors about me arresting you two years ago, others did too. And how many people saw us fight together during the fight against the aliens?”

“You think that people had the time to look around? Everyone had to watch out for their lives,” Barry pointed out. “Plus, there were no civilians around to film videos and post them on social media, no reporters filming from the air…Ah, your friend Saunders might have seen us—” 

“She did, but it’s alright,” the SWAT officer assured as she looked away. “I guess I’m freaking out about being used as your weakness again, because this time I’m not sure that I _ can _ defend myself. Blacksmith freaks me out. Those sharp pieces of metal…” 

“I would never let anything happen to you, Iris,” Barry promised her as he took one of her hands in his. “_ Ever_. And we can ask Cisco to create a training session simulating a fight against these two, if you want. They’re powerful, but far from invincible.”

She searched his eyes for a moment, then gave him a small smile before nodding in agreement. 

“Sure, let’s do that. Cisco’s simulations are so much more realistic than ours at SWAT, but we can’t afford his virtual reality software.”

“I guess that I should ask Cisco to figure out ways to defeat me too,” Barry thought out loud, “maybe Goldface figured that out and that's why he was so serene about having me crash his party.”

After discussing a few minor points about the mission, Iris decided to head home.

Barry sped her to her apartment, and managed to get a deep goodnight kiss, though Iris pushed him away at the last second.

"What?" he asked, confused when she looked at him suspiciously.

"This is our _ third fake date_!" She declared. "The charity dinner last year, Rogues last week, then tonight…We're kissing just like you said in the interrogation room! _How_ did you know? Did you time travel too? Is this why you've been in love with me for so long, why you were so confident that I'd return your feelings that day in the interrogation room? You knew that we'd get together eventually? "

"Iris, I wasn't a speedster until 2012," he quickly defended himself, half-amused but half-weirded out too. "So me pining for you for six years wasn't by design. I'm sure that I'm not the only one from CC High who's held a torch for you. At least half of our class had a crush on you back then, all genders included…Don't roll your eyes, you know it's true."

"Then what about _ after _ 2012?" she inquired.

"Iris, I don't do time travel," he assured her. "It would be too easy and _ very dangerous _ to disturb the space-time continuum, create diverging timelines and not even be able to return to my original timeline. That man in the yellow suit had been lost in the wrong _ universe _!"

"Ah," was the cop's subdued reaction.

"And if I had to travel through time, I'd go in the past, that's safer," he specified. "The future is unknown, why risk landing in a place that might be hostile to me?"

"Right," Iris acknowledged.

"Are we going to discuss the fact that you just implied that you return my feelings?" Barry asked with a wide grin.

"No! Get out, Allen," was Iris' expected reply.

The speedster might have scared a few people on his run back to his apartment, his voice coming out as a creepy sound at superspeed when he screamed in elation into the night.

**2009 **

_ "It's just…It's not a good time for me right now," Barry confessed to his counselor. "I'm almost done with college and I'm _ not _ looking forward to graduation. My parents won't be there, my only friend is in Central City and he's mad at me right now because I want to go to grad school instead of becoming a full-time employee at S.T.A.R Labs like him…I broke up with Meena. She's great but—" _

_ "She's not Iris," he replied. _

_ He? Miss Lewis was a woman… _

_ Barry's eyes widened in shock when he stared at himself sitting on the other side of the large desk. _

_ He looked different, older maybe? No glasses, his hair looked a mess, and what was that black leather suit? _

_ "It's okay kid, Iris will make everything better eventually," his odd other self said, but before Barry could ask him what he meant, the bell rang. _

_ What? There was no bell for class time at SCU— _

Barry's hand shot up to switch off his phone alarm as he tried to cling to the details of his dream. They felt important.

Unfortunately, by the time he opened his eyes, he didn't remember anything other than it was based on a memory of a session with Miss Lewis.

Ugh, he felt so lame for crying like a baby the other day, about his mom calling him 'Bear'. He'd planned on talking about his present sources of stress at his last scheduled session but had chickened out. It was too weird. 

Breaking up with Meena Dhawan was a decision that had influenced his other decision to go to grad school instead of joining S.T.A.R. Labs as an employee rather than an intern. Meena had already accepted her offer to become a full-time staff member, and at first Barry had been excited to have a best friend and a girlfriend to go home to, but he didn't feel ready to go back to Central City. In fact, his parents' lawyer had advised against it until he had his parent's will fully secured. Barry should've just accepted to let his aunt-in-law have his childhood home, it's not like he could live in that big house by himself right now.

But he'd stupidly thought that one day he'd live there with a family of his own, and like the worst boyfriend and creepiest loser in the world he'd daydreamed about being married with children…Only his wife hadn't been Meena.

It had been Iris West.

_ Fuck_, Barry should be over his high school crush by now, shouldn't he? Iris had probably forgotten his existence already. This was so unhealthy. He'd definitely started dating Meena because she subconsciously reminded him of Iris: short, dark skin, long dark hair, big smile…

Breaking up with her was for the best, because there was nothing he could do about his feelings for Iris right now. It wouldn't have been fair to Meena, who seriously could do so much better than him.

His feelings for Iris would fade away eventually. He just needed time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!  
I promise that this isn't the only West-Allen sexy time, they didn't even "go all the way" so I owe you that at least.
> 
> Guys, how cool is it that this week's episode was Valentine's Day oriented and brought back Goldface and Amunet Black? Did the show writers peek at my fic last year or what lol. This season's show runner is doing great things with Iris, I'm so glad that I was wrong about him being like the others (first half of the season was bad though!). My problem is that he's handling too many storylines, and I sincerely don't care about Allegra or another Wells storyline. Give me more Cisco!


	21. We All Have Our Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Team Flash's mini fallout; Iris finds the meta she's been looking for, just not the way she expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel so bad for kinda lying to you guys but not really? You'll know what I mean by the end of the chapter, please do read my lame excuse in the endnotes.
> 
> The 'cop killer' refers to the gun used in the district three massacre (that weapon Barry tried to buy in the episode where he called himself the Chemist, remember?)
> 
> Hartley should be his own warning at this point, I think.
> 
> Chapter title from "No One's Here To Sleep" by Naughty Boy (feat Bastille)

_ "That feels so good, yes Bear, ah…" Iris whispered into Barry's ear after a particularly deep stroke that had her clinging to him as he himself held her tight in his arms. _

_ He was almost lifting her off the bed as if to pull her into him so they'd meld into each other. _

_ And it did feel good, the pet name was _ really _ doing it for him, this was the best dream he'd had of Iris so far… _

Wait, what?

"Damn it," Barry groaned as he blinked his eyes open.

Of course it had been a dream. His brain was providing him at night what he craved all day.

Not just sex, but…intimacy, yeah, that's what he wanted with Iris.

However, like the rest of the police, Sergeant West was busy seizing all the 'cop killer' guns (that was the street name of the weapon used in the district three massacre) they could trace thanks to an 'anonymous tip'. Because the weapon was so dangerous, every single raid was coordinated by SWAT.

So, Barry hadn't seen Iris other than in passing for ten days.

Not that the cop would want to see him even if she were available for a real date. 

She was _ angry at him _ because he hadn't succeeded in convincing Cisco to give up info on Hartley's whereabouts, meaning let the police search the R.I. campus because there was no other logical place for the criminal genius to hide after his fallout with Sydney Palmer—who had finally found out about the black market sales of the stun guns. Mr. Ramon had lawyered up and prevented Detective Singh from getting a search warrant. Iris had been scolded for 'giving the head up' to the CEO (obviously Singh didn't know that Iris had obtained the intel on Pied Piper from The Flash).

If it had been up to Barry, Hartley would already be in Iron Heights right now. 

But Cisco and Caitlin were fiercely loyal to their friend, and hadn't budged when Sergeant West had demanded that Rathaway be held accountable for his contribution to the heightened and destructive gang violence not just in district three, but in district four and five as well.

Barry himself was furious with Cisco and Caitlin, no just because they were harboring Rathaway, but because they'd restricted Barry's access to multiple areas of the company. Obviously they couldn't stop him from searching the entire campus in a couple of minutes, but Cisco had threatened to end their friendship if he did.

* * *

_ "You're kidding me," Barry said flatly, his eyes going back and forth between his two friends, before silently pleading Ronnie to intervene. _

_ "Don't look at me, I was against this madness," the structural engineer informed him with a frustrated shrug of his shoulders, refusing to meet Caitlin's gaze. _

_ "You of all people can't possibly judge Hartley for his criminal activities, Barry, come on!" Cisco argued. "Yeah, he's indirectly responsible for the death of cops…Whereas you killed cops _ yourself! _ We didn't turn our backs on you for that, so we won't condemn Hartley for his crimes either." _

_ "He betrayed you!" the speedster countered. "He betrayed _ all of us _ . He left us in our hour of need, moved to Star City to enjoy a luxurious life with the Palmers while we had to empty our wallets to the last penny in order to compensate your former employees, to pay for endless hospital bills and funerals! Even without money, he could've helped me identify metas in need, he could've heard the employees who were suffering from their powers before it was too late!" _

_ Cisco's jaw ticket. Barry knew that he had brought up a touchy subject. Ronnie's sacrifice had ensured that no one had died from the explosion of the particle accelerator, but in the end a few people had died from the powers they had developed. _

_ "Hartley warned me against launching the particle accelerator," the leader of the company recalled tightly. "Helping us fix my mistake was not his prerogative." _

_ "Neither was it _ mine!" _ Barry pointed out. "I didn't know that the damn machine existed until it exploded! Yet for two years I'm the one who fixed _ your mistake _ and who allowed you to keep _ your company _ afloat." _

_ "It's your company too!" Cisco pointed out. "You own more shares to it than I do!" _

_ "Hartley lied about the meta-cuffs being Ray Palmer's idea, it was his!" Barry moved onto the next argument, unwilling to let himself get distracted by what was still a source of resentment: his friends letting him do all the hard work to help fix Cisco's problem. _

_ "He _ lied to my face _ about not knowing why stun guns sales on the black market were directly linked to Sydney Palmer!" the speedster exposed. "And excuse me, but my criminal activities have made the city _ safer _ . His engendered _ more crimes _ ! And are you really going to ignore the fact that he was in leagues with McMillan? What are you going to tell Melinda when she learns the news?" _

_ "Why tell Melinda anything? You already killed McMillan!" Cisco quickly stated. "We don't need to create any tension within the family, okay?" _

_ "You want to keep it a _ secret _ ?" Barry asked incredulously. "Sure, McMillan is already dead, but don't you think that Melinda deserves to know who's responsible for her increased anxiety as the mother of a teenager who has to cross gang turf to go to school?" _

_ "I offered Melinda to stay in the guesthouse here but she refused," Cisco informed him. "We're further from Yolanda's school than their place," Caitlin explained. "I'm with Cisco, Barry. The police are going to remove that terrible gun from the streets soon enough, and it won't be a problem anymore. We don't need to tell Melinda. Everything will be okay." _

_ "Just like you thought that the launch of the particle accelerator would be successful, so you didn't feel the need to _ inform me _ that it existed, huh?" Barry couldn't help but throw at his friends. _

_ "It was supposed to be a _ pleasant surprise!" _ Cisco reminded him loudly as he threw his hands in the air. "You were stressed out about your job hunt, or rather stressed out about not telling us that you'd stopped looking for a job while _ making me think _ that I might have to let you go work for a competitor…even though you claimed to want to help me build my company!" _

_ "What more than my _ entire inheritance _ could I possibly give you, huh?" Barry questioned. "I'm not a genius like you guys, and back then I couldn't learn new skills in hours. I knew that you could easily find my replacement if I ever decided to leave. I really wanted to work for the police station in district seven! I knew that Tessa and Harrison's car accident was fishy, because I was a _ forensic scientist _ , not a lab researcher. And I was _ right! _ Dr. Morgan and Dr. Wells were murdered by that other speedster from the future." _

_ "Or so that shady lady who works with Eiling claimed," Cisco declared. "There's no way for us to prove it now, unless Iris can get you a copy of the case?" _

_ "Iris, who's not talking to me since we _ refused _ to cooperate with the police to have Hartley arrested?" Barry asked with a humorless laugh. "You know what, I'm going home. See you when I'm done being mad at you." _

_ "Come on, man, you gotta understand," Cisco pleaded. "Hartley was abandoned by his parents, and he was too proud to tell us about it. He said that he didn't want to bother us because we already had our hands full with the aftermath of the particle accelerator explosion and you…" _

_ "Me? What about _ me _ ?" Barry questioned. _

_ "Nothing," Caitlin intervened. "I mean, you know that Hartley has always been a bit jealous of you…" _

_ "Why? Because all of you were a bit nicer to me than I deserved, out of _ pity _ that I had no family to go home to?" _

_ "Barry, come on, it's not out of pity," Ronnie chimed in this time. "You're a great guy, kind and caring, you deserve to have people care for you in return…" _

_ "Maybe I did before, but not _ after _ I became a killer," the speedster argued. "You…I know that you guys were scared of me when my lightning turned red, and you're still scared—" _

_ "That's not true!" Cisco and Caitlin denied in unison, but Barry kept his eyes on Ronnie, who was the most honest of the three. _

_ He didn't deny it. The speedster nodded at him in appreciation. _

_ "There was never anything to envy," he stated firmly. "Hartley doesn't realize how fucking lucky he is to have you defend him like that." _

_ "We'd defend you too!" Cisco claimed immediately. _

_ Barry laughed, dropping his head into a hand. _

_ "From _ who _ , Cisco?" he asked with a smirk as he looked back up. "I'm the fastest man alive. The only person who could stop me is Iris, but after that first arrest when she didn't know who I was underneath the mask, she's never bothered. And now she won't even talk to me. We were _ finally _ getting closer…" _

_ "We're sorry Barry," Caitlin voiced quietly. _

_ "Yeah, me too," he replied with a shrug. "See you guys later." _

* * *

This was Barry's third day away from R.I. and he wasn't even bored. There was always so much to do in Central City.

After going through his morning routine at normal speed, he put on his suit and sped to the construction site of the future Meta-Human center. 

Bellows had informed him that half of the workers had quit after learning the purpose of all the reinforced materials used to make the building robust enough to withstand earthquakes, fires, flooding and all kinds of accidents and natural disasters.

(Ronnie had helped figure out how to prevent the building from collapsing because of mishaps from meta-humans who had poor control over their powers.) 

So Barry had decided to help the construction workers who had remained and were consequently being paid double.

He'd been pleased to see meta-humans he knew among the employees: Adam Fells, who could generate tremors; Griffin Grey, who had superstrength; and Joey Monteleone; who produced hot tar.

Fells and Monteleone were petty criminals that The Flash had stopped and Shawna had watched over for a while until they proved to be trust-worthy. They had fought along with Team Flash against the aliens last year. Grey was one of the harmless metas from the list that Iris had given the team. He was a sixteen-year-old kid who looked thirty because accelerated aging was a side-effect of his super strength. Caitlin had reversed-engineered the over-reactive telomerases from Grey's body, and created a serum that specifically regenerated the kid's telomeres, but the de-aging process was slow. It was working nonetheless: when Barry had met Griffin, he had looked closer to forty. Caitlin had done well.

"You're with us today again, Flash?" the adult-looking kid said as a way of greeting, already dressed in his uniform and wearing his PPE. "Don't you have more important things to do?"

"Building a place where all of us metas can feel safe _ is _ important, Griffin," the speedster pointed out as he looked around for the site coordinator. "Soon you'll be able to get your old life back, but you might still want to hang out with other kids who understand what you're going through. How are your online classes going, by the way?"

"They're great!" he replied enthusiastically, and it was quite obvious through his sparkly eyes that he was younger than he looked. "Wish I'd had that option from the start, seriously. Oh, my parents would really like to thank you in person, Flash, sir…Not just for my education, but for protecting the city, and that message when you told us that we actually weren't freaks, that we belong here…"

Barry hadn't expected such heartfelt words from someone who'd almost peed his pants the first time that they had met.

It was a good sign that he felt good about the Greys' gratitude, right?

"Tell them that I received their thanks directly from you, Griffin," he replied, making sure to soften his usually intimidating vibrating voice. "Now, let's get to work."

* * *

“Golf is hit! I repeat, Golf is hit!” Iris reported as clearly as possible before she slid to the ground right next to Garcia, a few bullets passing over her head before she found refuge by her teammate behind the thick concrete wall encasing some equipment support panel.

Iris and Rick had been on the roof of the abandoned building that the rest of the team was raiding, coordinating the team's movement while keeping an eye for gang movement in the area (those guys were coming in waves from all over the block, and Iris' team had been waiting on backup from district four for over ten minutes now.)

Some gang members had detected the two MFU-SWAT officers and had overwhelmed them with their numbers, blocking access to the stairs. It was just a two story building, but jumping off haphazardly would be costly.

Fortunately, Garcia’s vest had taken the brunt of the shots: Iris could see half of the bullets poking out of it.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” the tech expert groaned quietly as he dragged himself on his side. “Fuck, these_ hurt! _”

“We’re on our way, Golf and India. Stay—” was Lawton’s response in the comms before a loud whoosh resonated on his side and the channel was cut off.

“What the hell was that?” Iris asked before she heard the sound she was now familiar with: the sound of an incomplete nuclear fission-powered weapon _charging_.

“Move, move!” she urged Garcia, helping him get on his feet and dragging him away before part of their thick shield was pierced right through, pieces of metal from the panel melting on top of several medium size blocks of concrete. 

Seemed that the weapon Iris’ team had been assigned to seize had come to them.

“Holy shit, that thing is scarier in real life,” Garcia commented behind the much thinner and shorter wall of the skylight where he and Sergeant West were now hidden, sitting with their backs reclined to keep their heads down.

“Did you get them?” someone shouted halfway across the roof.

“Don’t think so, didn’t hear any pig oink!” someone else replied before a bunch of thugs burst into laughter.

“India to Alpha, come in Team Leader,” Iris tried to contact Lawton. “This is India, do you copy, Alpha?”

“If we get my backpack we’ll be able to track them,” Garcia said as he pointed at the draining roof edge at two o’clock, but the gang members were at their nine, they’d see them in time to disintegrate them with the cop killer.

“Are we on the side of the gutter?” she asked her teammate, trying to remember the layout of the roof.

One edge of the roof was unobstructed on their six, but they would be visible to whoever had just shot them with the cop killer before they could jump.

It was still preferable to staying put, waiting for backup that might not ever arrive.

“West, now would be a good time to confirm that you have The Flash on speed dial by calling him with that burner phone of yours,” the tech guy commented.

“What?” Iris whispered, not sure that they could even afford the time for this conversation.

The sound of footsteps indicated that the gangsters were moving about.

“Come on, India, none of us are dumb,” Garcia whispered back as he craned his neck to check on the movement behind them. “Last year, the Bronzeskin assignment? The dark speedster was ready to kill all of us except _you_. I sincerely don’t remember his exact wording ’cause I was using all my energy not to shit my pants, but he targeted me because I’m your favorite teammate, the feeling is mutual by the way. Anyways, The Flash sounded like a jealous boyfriend back then, or rather an envious _ stalker_, because I know for a fact that you're not involved with him.”

Considering the dangerous situation she’d been in for the past half-hour, it was comical that Iris only wanted to throw up _now_.

She'd known that she would regret her decision to fool around with Barry (yes, she was calling it 'fooling around' as a _coping mechanism_), but not like this. Not from the guilt of not deserving her favorite teammate's trust.

“He’s into you, isn’t he? That’s why he let you have Bronzeskin in the end,” her teammate guessed. “I mean, he’s not a total case, he did help save the city from fucking aliens, and it’s during that fight that I had a glimpse of you two fighting side by side. The only way to track him was to keep an eye on you because he was protecting you.”

Iris took in his words but compartmentalized her reaction: anxiousness, fear, guilt…She shoved them in a corner of her mind as she readied her rifle and adjusted her helmet.

“Seriously, West, I value my life better than I value protocols,” Garcia assured her. “The Flash can kill me if I tell your secret—”

“I don’t have my burner phone with me,” Iris let him know flatly before signaling him to stay quiet.

Two of the gang members were doing a poor job at whispering something…A blood trail?

Sergeant West’s head snapped towards Garcia, and she saw the pool of blood under his left foot.

Damn it.

Iris unhooked a smoke grenade from her belt and showed it to her teammate before she pulled out the pin with her teeth, then popped the spoon before throwing it overhead.

That had the thugs panicking, and the two cops took advantage of their disarray to pick them off.

Only a couple of bullets hitting her right in the middle of her chest stopped Iris from taking down the gang member holding the cop killer. She went down with a loud gasp.

“West!” Garcia shouted before taking down her shooter.

Iris couldn’t even sigh in relief because she heard the sound of the cop killer charging. 

She couldn’t believe that two MFU elite cops like Garcia and her were about to get killed by a common thug, all that because a disowned rich heir wanted to make pocket money. She would laugh if she could draw enough air into her lungs.

“West? As in, _Captain_ Joe West?” the gangster asked as he disengaged the terrifying weapon. “What's a high-ranked officer doing in the field?”

“Does she look like a man to you, moron?” someone asked loudly in the distance right after Iris’ and Garcia’s meta-human alert apps chirped.

“What the—” the thug started before grunting in pain, and Iris lifted her head when she heard a whoosh of air similar to the one from the comms, followed by the impact of a heavy weapon falling on the ground.

There were only two men left standing: Garcia, who was still losing blood from his left leg, and some guy dressed in a grey body suit, a dark brown hood and was wearing odd, thick gloves with metallic parts.

“Iris West, isn’t it?” the newcomer asked as he lifted his head, revealing the bottom half of his face.

She could tell that the guy wore round-framed glasses and had dark hair, but other than his wide grin, nothing.

“Not the meta we were expecting, but thanks man,” Garcia said as he bent over to take out his pants belt and tie it tightly around his upper thigh. “I remember you from the fight against the aliens. You’re one of The Flash’s guys, right?”

“Huh,” the stranger reacted mildly before lifting one of his arms. “If only you’d stayed quiet,” he added before closing his extended hand into a fist, and airwaves came out of his glove, sending Garcia flying backward with a scream.

“What the hell!” Iris found the breath to exclaim as she crawled back on her feet but the meta-human aimed his gloved fist at her before she could grab her rifle.

“Please slowly remove your headgear with your right hand so that I can confirm that I have the right person,” he requested politely, his tone reminiscent of the pompous rich people she greeted at charity balls.

“My teammate needs medical assistance, please,” Iris said after she obeyed and raised her hands in the air for good measure. 

“Gotta admit, Allen’s got good tastes in women,” the guy condescendingly complimented her without acknowledging her request. “You remind me a bit of Dhawan…Ah, actually, Dhawan reminded Allen of_ you_, didn’t she?” 

He’d been walking closer and closer, his weaponized hand still aiming at her, and when he was only a few feet away from her, Sergeant West was able to see most of his face.

“Hartley Rathaway,” she bit out. “_Disowned_ son of Osgood and Rachel Rathaway. I’ve been looking for you.”

Iris knew that antagonizing the meta was a bad idea, but she couldn’t help it. There was something in the arrogant set of his mouth that made her want to teach him some humility.

“I’ve been looking for you too,” he replied with a smirk. “See, I have a secret to reveal, and it concerns your precinct in district seven.”

Iris blinked at the totally unexpected turn of events.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> So, Barry and Iris had a fight off-screen and aren't talking. As Barry himself lamented in this chapter, that seems like two steps back from the nice step forward in the last chapter, but please hear me out. This doesn't qualify as getting back into the slow burn because Barry and Iris weren't physically in the same space here, and the next time that they will be in the same space they'll totally be on speaking terms.  
Feel free to hate me right now but please don't forget to read the next chapter that will be posted either very shortly or by the end of the day.


	22. Coming For Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hartley summarizes his life to Iris in French, and brings her bad news; Iris confers with Cisco.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of Hartley, sorry if that's not your jam. That's the last of him, I promise. I hope that his life story will be easy to follow.
> 
> Some translation and reminders:
> 
> *”Your brother lives in Switzerland, right? Do you speak French? Or do you speak German?” 
> 
> François=Francis=Francisco, Cisco  
Barthélémy=Bartholomew, Barry  
L’orphelin=the orphan (in this case, Barry)  
Les laboratoires de l’étoile=S.T.A.R. Labs
> 
> **Freedom Day=that earth’s version of Independence Day
> 
> Glitter and Blade are the nicknames of Goldface and Blacksmith (which are the codenames of Keith Kenyon and Amunet Black)
> 
> Chapter Title from "No One's Here To Sleep" by Naughty Boy (feat Bastille)

“Votre frère vit en Suisse, n’est-ce pas? Parlez-vous Français? Oder sprechen Sie Deutsch?”* the disowned heir asked Iris in French then in German, after he _ did _ call nine one one to have an ambulance dispatched to their location.

“Français,” she replied, surprised that the after school French lessons her father had forced on her all those years ago were finally paying off.

With the exception of a few slang words that Rathaway used to insult Barry—'Barthélémy' in French, which sounded much better than Bartholomew in Iris’ opinion—Iris was able to follow Hartley's story: he was born the only child of his parents, his mother unable to get pregnant again after him.

He grew up to be a genius, to his parents’ delight, but he quickly disappointed them when he came out as gay. It’s not that his parents were homophobic, it’s that they had hoped that, unlike them, he would’ve had multiple children to take care of the family business. Rathaway admitted that, if he ever returned in his parents’ good graces, he’d agree to their idea of a surrogate mother, or maybe convince Caitlin to clone him.

Except for his parents' displeasure at his lack of conformism, Hartley had a pretty sweet life, especially when he caught the eye of Harrison Wells and Tessa Morgan during a theoretical physics convention. The two prodigious scientists had just decided to open their own corporate lab after spending a decade teaching all over the world, and Hartley had wanted in.

He didn’t even mind ‘François’, his immediate rival and the first full-time protégé of the brillant couple. True, the other boy was also a genius, but he was reckless, always taking shortcuts instead of sticking to the rules of scientific research. Dr. Morgan and Dr. Harrison loved him like a son, but they were also clearly aware of his flaws.

Then came “l’orphelin,” who had all the cuts of a cliché protagonist of some soppy coming of age novel. 

François was the one who introduced Hartley to Barthélémy, and the guy made an impression on him: lanky, dark hair that always needed a cut, glasses that did nothing to hide the most beautiful green eyes Hartley had ever seen (on that Iris agreed), the cutest shy smile…And of course straight as a stripper's pole. At first, Rathaway thought that he could still befriend Barthélémy since unlike the other interns and employees at les laboratoires de l’étoile he actually was from the elite like him, and later Hartley even learned that his mother had gone to school with the orphan’s deceased parents.

But Hartley's jealousy for Barthélémy grew pretty fast, and it really started because of his own mother. Rachel Rathaway wouldn’t stop asking her son about the ‘poor boy’, even invited all of Hartley’s ‘friends’ for a Freedom Day** barbecue just to make sure that Barry ate enough. Dr. Tessa Morgan had also been a guest of the Rathaways at the barbecue, and she and Rachel had dotted on Barthélémy so hard that day that even François had been jealous…Of _ the two mothers _, because he was just as protective of the skinny boy as everyone else was. Even Osgood had demanded his son to be a worthy friend to 'Nora and Henry’s boy'.

Hartley told Iris that he wished that the orphan had been born a genius so that he would know for sure which of the two was the most brilliant. Despite his only slightly above average IQ, the orphan was quite meticulous, and without family obligation or a social life he was able to be very productive in the lab, so much so that by his third summer at ‘les laboratoires de l’étoile’ he had been an active team member of no less than six published works, whereas geniuses like Hartley and François had only two published works in the same time frame, working _ full time and all year-long _.

So yes, Barthélémy deserved all the praises, and the pretty girlfriend he ended up breaking up with, all before announcing to his pseudo-adoptive family that he didn’t want to be a researcher after all. Nope, he wanted to be a forensics scientist and work for the police.

The _ police_. The member of an elite family wanted to work for the _ government_. The horror.

Good riddance as far as Hartley was concerned, but Dr. Morgan and Dr. Harrison missed their favorite adopted son a lot when he was in grad school, so one day they decided to go on a road trip to Star City in order to visit Barthélémy…only to die in a car accident not two blocks away from their own home.

Everyone was devastated, but guess who took it harder? None other than Barthélémy, who’d grown some muscles and had gotten impossibly more handsome, yet still was this innocent soul who could cry silently for hours on end on the day of his mentors’ funerals. He was even more beautiful in his grief than the two scientists’ unique daughter.

When Jesse Wells refused to take over her parents’ company under the supervision of a board of trustees, Hartley accepted François' offer to join his start up company along with over half of the former employees of their mentors. But guess who ended up owning fifty-two percent of the company? Barthélémy.

And guess who got his job application rejected by CCPD? Barthélémy, again.

"More of that in a moment," Rathaway promised as he switched the hand with which he was still aiming at Iris—she rolled her eyes at him before checking on Garcia, who weakly waved back at her.

Back to Hartley's story: for some reason, the orphan lied about applying to other places even though François was giving him puppy eyes so he’d stay with his company. They were one big family after all! One big family that kept secrets from each other.

“Which secrets?” Iris asked impatiently as she heard the sirens of the ambulance in the distance, and possibly the sirens of the district four backup that the SWAT team clearly didn't need anymore. It seemed that Rathaway had knocked unconscious everyone in a mile radius, gangsters _ and _ cops.

“I’m sure there are more secrets going around in the group, but these are the more pertinent to you,” Rathaway assured in English. “One: I’m the one who got _ his _ application rejected.”

Iris gaped at him.

“Why?” she asked incredulously. “You didn’t even want him around, so why give him a reason to stay with the rest of the group?” she pointed out.

“Two: F.R. is the one who made me do it, _ obviously,_” Rathaway kept going. 

Iris blinked.

F.R. Francisco Ramon. Cisco.

_ What the hell? _

“And three: the cop I blackmailed to get it done is still there,” the meta-human concluded before he looked over the edge of the roof.

“The Flash almost ruined my business by killing my main investor,” Rathaway reminded her. “I'd built Pied Piper on my own, before my parents disowned me. I was proud of it, and was about to make it _ legitimate _ with McMillan's sponsorship, but the dark speedster put an end to my dream. So when _ Goldface _ himself approached me to fund my projects but also talk about the dark speedster, _ I listened. _ That's my power, by the way: super hearing, not those airwaves I plagiarized from F.R."

Yeah, Iris had figured out that the gloves were a weaponized piece of tech, not his own powers.

"Anyways, Kenyon was more pissed at The Flash than even me because he used to have a deal with the military, you see: he gave them names of metas and in return they provided him with anti-meta tech to keep his powered business partners under control. The Flash’s intervention put an end to that fortuitous partnership, so Goldface was eager to make him pay for it. At first Glitter wanted me to make a weapon that would wound The Flash beyond his regenerative abilities…

“That’s what the cop killer was initially for,” Iris guessed, horrified that Barry’s own acquaintance, the _ friend of a friend_, would do something like that.

Also, Goldface was the one who had provided the army with the names of meta-humans? That scumbag.

“Yes, but I knew that The Flash could phase through a blast or even just evade it like he evades bullets,” Rathaway pointed out. “Goldface didn’t know exactly how fast and powerful the speedster was back then, and I had no intention of correcting his assumption. I was making money _ and _ sabotaging the only serious threat to Cisco's friend. It was a win-win situation for me.”

That didn’t make Iris feel better, because she knew that things had changed.

“Then the aliens’ invasion happened, and several meta-humans who’d witnessed The Flash’s heroism shared how truly amazing he is with the rest of the internet. Dozens of threads on the meta-human forum are all about praising The Flash and arguing how much better the community would be if _ he _ became the leader, if he became the 'meta-human king of Central City',” Rathaway recounted with a scowl. 

Iris snorted at his blatant jealousy.

“Goldface gave me another chance to prove that I was serious about taking down The Flash,” the meta-human added. “He gave me until his annual ball to figure something out. I had never used my powers so extensively, it was an experience. In the end, I was able to find a meta whose powers can help defeat The Flash,” the super-hearing meta informed her so casually that she almost shrugged it off.

"What?" she exclaimed belatedly. "There’s a meta who can defeat The Flash? Who is it?"

“I’ll let you find out for yourself,” Rathaway answered with a smirk. “I’m being generous enough warning you about the gold mark on your back.”

Iris blinked.

_ A gold mark? _

“Oh, you coppers probably don’t know what that is,” Hartley commented with a head tilt as the sound of sirens got very close. “A gold mark is like a hit mark, only that you have a week to contact Goldface and negotiate the cost of your life. Your gold mark should go live in the next eight hours. You’re welcome.”

“Holy shit,” Garcia actually exclaimed in the back.

“The day after Goldface’s ball, Blacksmith walked into the restaurant where my boyfriend and I were having lunch and she asked me if I knew who you were,” the disowned heir added with a chuckle. “Imagine my surprise learning that The Flash has a _ soulmate_. Not a groupie, not a girlfriend, an honest to God _ soulmate_. I didn't know about you when when Blade approached me at the restaurant, but I _did_ _know_ when she approached me again at one of my warehouses two days ago, with a psychic in tow to act as a human lie detector. Sorry Sergeant. Kinda your own fault for putting your nose into my lucrative business, karma's a bitch. I know that The Flash will try to have my head and this time F.R. and C.S. can't protect my handsome face,” he commented with a flip of his hand over his half-covered head.

The sound of car tires screeching and doors slamming made Iris sigh in relief this time. She had been worried about the gang members waking up before backup arrived.

"Anyways, I'm going to lay low for a long while, find a place the orphan can't just run through and decapitate me in one breath,” Rathaway announced with a shrug. “Despite my invention, I actually harbor violence, and there’s going to be plenty to go around this city in a bit. So please pass on all that info to The Flash, will you? It was time you started speaking to him again, anyways, he's all sad that you're not. It was nice meeting you, Iris West."

And just as Iris was going to ask him again about the meta who could defeat the speedster, Hartley Rathaway jumped off the roof.

He must have heard the backup cops coming because they burst through the door of the roof just a minute afterwards, barking orders and pointing their guns everywhere.

Iris didn't bother checking where Rathaway went, she rushed to Garcia's side after assuring the other cops that the perimeter was clear.

"_Soulmate_?" the tech whispered before the EMT were allowed to come up. "West, what the hell?"

"It's complicated," Iris whispered back, a bit panicked now that her teammate knew for sure just how deeply connected she was with The Flash—at least Hartley had kept Barry and Cisco's identities secret.

"Feel free to tell me all about it someday," Garcia joked before abruptly passing out.

* * *

“How could you do that to him?” Iris asked Cisco quietly, disappointment tightening her chest as she stood in front of the man she considered her _ friend_.

“You don’t have to whisper, Barry isn’t around,” the CEO of Ramon Industries reassured her, his voice echoing in the palms of his hands where he’d dropped his head.

They were in the secret breakroom, so Iris had been worried about Barry just phasing through the walls.

After taking a loud breath, Cisco lifted his head back up and ran his hands in his usually neat hair, now loose like when he was in his Quantum suit instead of tied up in a ponytail.

“First of all, it didn’t happen the way you think it happened,” he claimed before clumsily pouring himself a drink and opening the fridge to grab her something. “I joked about CCPD rejecting Barry’s application, it was a _ joke _at first! But yeah, of course I was bitter about Barry not staying with us, Hartley picked up on that and pulled strings…Do I regret prompting him? Hell no. I thanked Hartley for the favor and asked him to keep it a secret. Barry’s _ family,_ he belongs with us, and after everything that's happened here we are four years later, finally at a place where we can all thrive _ together. _ So if Goldface and Blacksmith think that they can put a gold mark threaten _ one of us_—”

“Excuse me, what?” Iris asked after she almost choked on her own drink, a sparkly lemonade. “I’m _ not _ one of you.”

The unimpressed look Cisco gave her made her sigh loudly.

Alright, her denial had gone for long enough and she wasn’t fooling anyone.

She had feelings for Barry. It had been twelve days since she’d talked to him and she _ missed him_. She had left her burner phone under her washing machine on purpose, so she wouldn't cave in and call him to patch things up.

And yes, she was unofficially part of Team Flash. She’d become close to Cisco beyond their work relationship. His powers of teleportation actually allowed her to have a social life by hanging out with him, Cynthia, Mina and sometimes even Dominic. Iris even texted Cynthia a few times in a week, and they’d had a girls’ night with Linda and Stacy a few weeks back.

“Well, I’m _ not_ a meta-human,” Sergeant West specified. “Unless Silvertongue has corrected them, Goldface and Blacksmith think that I am one. Speaking of Silvertongue, I think that he’s the key to bringing down the king and queen of crime.”

“He is?” the breacher asked with a skeptical frown.

“The fact that Goldface didn’t let him in on the deal with Hartley proves that Kenyon doesn’t fully trust his right hand,” the SWAT officer argued. “The ledger suggests that Silvertongue didn’t know about the cop killer until the massacre in district three. Plus, Scudder was adamant that Silvertongue would readily accept The Flash’s leadership. He only hurt Barry because he had no idea that he's the dark speedster.”

“Hold your horses, we should be discussing this with Barry himself,” Cisco proposed as he took out his phone, but then paused.

“What is it?” Sergeant West asked.

“Can we leave out the part about his application to CCPD?” the businessman bargained.

“Sorry Cisco, but no we _ can’t,_” she refused. “If you don’t tell him, _ I _ will. You had _ no right _ to ruin his chances to a career in law enforcement like that. He wasn’t going anywhere, he would’ve still been in Central City! District seven is only twenty minutes away by car…”

“His apartment is in district seven too!” Cisco argued. “I don’t know much about the daily life of a CSI, but I know that Barry is a _ workaholic _! He would’ve poured all his energy into his job, to the point that eating and sleeping would’ve been his only hobbies. And I knew that he’d meet you again one way or another, unless you’d gone to Europe—God, I hated not knowing your whereabouts back then! You were such a scary, unknown variable in all this, it was driving me insane.”

“You’re a hacker, Ramon,” Iris pointed out. “You could’ve just looked me up.”

“Barry forbade me to do that,” he informed her. “He didn’t talk that much about you in the first place, you know? It was the _ look _ he had in his eyes when I pushed him to share something about his high school crush that alerted me that you meant a lot to him. So if on top of him being too busy at work, he was kept away from us because of _you_…Not to brag, but I was right! You two reunited and you just _clicked. _ You can deny it all you want, Sergeant West, but that soulmates thing is—”

A gust of wind interrupted him, and Iris rolled her eyes at Cisco looking like a deer in the headlights at Barry’s unexpected appearance.

“Cisco, I need you to hack into—Iris!” Barry said as he realized that his friend wasn’t alone in the break room.

Iris swallowed discreetly as her heart started beating a bit faster at the sight of her…_ something_. 

She was surprised that she hadn’t dreamed about him in the past few days. She'd really missed those eyes.

“_That’s _ the look in his eyes that I was just talking about,” Cisco commented as he put his phone back in his pants pocket. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always welcome!
> 
> Don't forget to read chapter 23 as well!


	23. No One's Here To Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little (West)Barrisco drama; then West-Allen fail at talking things through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to bring on the drama after dropping the bomb about the CCPD application. Barry and Cisco are best friend, but like on the show they have some baggage.  
And yeah some West-Allen fluff that refused to stay fluffy, trust me, I tried!
> 
> Chapter title from the song by Naughty Boy (feat Bastille)

“I’ll just kill them all,” Barry interrupted Iris when she brought up her idea of contacting Silvertongue.

She rolled her eyes at him and Cisco threw his hands in the air.

“Man, they have someone who can _defeat you_, remember?” he pointed out before Barry directed a hard glare at him.

The speedster couldn’t believe that his _ best friend _ had led Hartley to sabotage his application to CCPD. After all this time Cisco had never thought of mentioning it, of apologizing for _ controlling _ Barry’s life like that.

He was pissed, at Cisco and Hartley and Goldface and Blacksmith.

He was also pissed at Iris, who still wanted to do things the ‘right way’, the _ good cop _ way, when really it had never given her results. Yes, she was a great cop and a great fighter, but she owed her progress in her case against Goldface to _ illegally _ interrogating Scudder and _ unofficially _ going undercover to Goldface’s masked ball. How did she even plan on getting a warrant to raid Silvertongue’s nightclub in the middle of district fucking three?

“Give me an hour and I’ll find Hartley, he’ll tell _ me _ what that meta’s powers are,” Barry suggested.

“Dude, no, come on!” Cisco objected. “Yeah Hartley messed up, but he warned us about the gold mark on Iris. He didn’t have to do that!”

“You keep defending that piece of shit,” Barry spat back, “and now I know why: you owe him a favor! If he hadn’t kept so many of your secrets, I would’ve never stuck around. _ What the hell _, Cisco?”

He couldn’t help his voice from cracking.

All the things he’d done because he’d tried to mitigate the consequences of the explosion of _ Cisco’s _ particle accelerator. All the blood on his hands, all the rage and sorrow and _ loneliness _ in his heart…

“I’m sorry Barry, really_ I’m so sorry_,” the engineer replied quietly as he passed a hand through his loose hair. “I just couldn’t accept the idea of you leaving us after _ everything _ . I’d thought that losing Tessa and Harrison would’ve brought you back in the fold, that the tragedy would make us grow _ closer_, and I freaked out when it didn’t. I wanted _ all of us _ to keep S.T.A.R. Labs’ legacy alive together—”

“The legacy was making science _accessible and safe_ to the public,” Barry reminded him with barely contained anger. “And your negligence did just the _opposite_: the particle accelerator explosion endangered people’s lives, and since then science has been used to oppress, arrest, and control meta-humans in this city! I did as much damage control as I could _ for you _, but you couldn’t be bothered to come clean about sabotaging my chance at a career I chose for myself?”

“Oh please, like you weren’t just trying to get back in touch with _ Iris_!” Cisco talked back before pointing an accusing finger at him. “Don’t deny that you changed your mind about joining S.T.A.R. Labs permanently because one day, you looked at Meena Dhawan and realized that she wasn’t _ enough _ for you. She was great, but she just wasn’t _ Iris _ ! Back then I was so confused about you breaking up with Meena, she’s an amazing woman and I’m still bitter that she went with Mercury Labs instead of joining us…But standing right here, looking at your _ soulmate_, I totally understand now! Meena was a constant reminder of what you truly could have if you just manned up and tried to pursue the girl you couldn’t forget!”

Barry gaped at his best friend, disbelieving.

“You can’t be saying that now,” he argued quietly. “Not after my theory that Tessa and Harrison’s car crash wasn’t an accident was validated; not after I’ve helped Iris identify Snart’s real murderer and unmask Hartley as the manufacturer of that dangerous weapon. I could’ve been a _ good CSI! _”

“You could’ve been _ anything _ you put your mind into, Barry,” Cisco claimed with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You might not be a genius, but you’re crazy smart and very rigorous in your work. And you’re my _ best friend. _ Is it really that _ unthinkable _ that I’d want you to stay with us?”

“I _ wasn’t _ leaving you!” Barry pointed out. “District seven isn’t that far from here! I gave you _ all of my money_, why would I just disappear after that?”

“Money means _ nothing _ to you,” the CEO answered with a humorless laugh. “It never did, and yeah I’d noticed how different you were from Hartley about the whole rich kid situation, but it truly hit me when you signed me that huge check to open this place _without blinking_. Barry, you live in a _ one bedroom _ apartment, you a speedster who started his criminal career as a _ high end thief _ , a whole year after the company started making _ profit _ . Don’t insult my _ above average _ intelligence by bringing up your fifty-two percent as an argument. The only time I freaked out about you owning most of the company was when I suspected that you were getting sick of protecting other metas from the military. I imagined that you would just sell your shares and speed off to God knows where.”

“That’s _ why _ you created the team?” Barry asked in a small voice. “Not because you wanted to _help_ all these innocent people, but because you wanted to make sure that I’d stick around?”

“I do like helping, believe me, I do,” Cisco promised. “That meta-human center? I can’t wait for its inauguration man, it will be amazing knowing that all these people who’ve lost so much because of me will finally have a safe space to just be themselves.”

“But they’re _ strangers_,” Iris actually chimed in, her voice even though her eyes were shining with unshed tears as she looked between Barry and Cisco. “Whereas you’re Cisco’s _ family, _Barry.”

Cisco nodded, and Barry immediately wanted to know what experience had made Iris of all people capable of not just understanding Cisco’s logic, but of _ sympathizing _ with him.

“So are _ you_, Iris,” the breacher declared before frowning at Barry. “So let’s not jeopardize her reputation as a cop by acting rashly. One of her teammates knows that you two are involved, remember?”

Barry waited for Iris to deny the claim that they were involved, and fought hard not to smile when she didn’t.

“Rick won’t tell anyone,” Iris promised with a pointed look at Barry, “but yes it would be ideal to close this case as cleanly as possible. Mindlessly killing Silvertongue, Goldface and Blacksmith would create a vacuum in the criminal world that I don’t want to be responsible for. If we can make Silvertongue turn around then the police can carefully dismantle the criminal network that plagues our city. There will always be a big bad, but giving districts three and four a chance to be _safer_ won’t hurt.” 

“Fine,” Barry agreed with a shrug. “So what’s the plan?”

“Remember the psychic?” the cop asked rhetorically. “Silvertongue called her Pam, so I looked up women in the criminal database with the first name Pamela, and came up with Pamela Sweigeld, ex-convict in Gotham State Penitentiary. I almost didn’t recognize her because of the red hair and golden mask, but I knew it was her because she was arrested along with her boyfriend Brendan Li aka Silvertongue.”

Barry blinked.

“I forgot that Silvertongue isn’t the guy’s real name,” Cisco spoke out loud what Barry thought internally.

“Same,” Iris admitted, “even though I arrested his brother, Marcus Li aka Bronzeskin. Anyways, I was thinking that you guys can help me get in touch with Sweigeld, and I’ll tell her that I want to negotiate my gold mark…”

“Bad idea,” Barry objected. “Iris, she’s a _ psychic_, we can’t fool her.”

“And we won’t try to fool her once we’re _ face to face _ with her,” the cop guaranteed. “We’ll tell her that we want to know that mysterious meta’s powers, and that we’ll leave her and Silvertongue alone if they help us take down Goldface and Blacksmith.”

“Silvertongue almost killed me,” the speedster reminded her. 

“Don’t start, Allen,” Iris warned him, and he scowled but shut up. “He didn’t know who you were when he electrocuted you. I don’t want to befriend him anyways, I just want to use the lesser of two evils to make our city safer.”

Barry noticed her wincing discreetly as she bent over to recycle her empty bottle of lemonade.

“You’re okay?” he asked out loud, his gaze locking in with Cisco’s, the engineer having noticed her discomfort as well.

“A little bruised from dealing with gang members earlier,” the cop admitted with a slight shrug. “Rathaway kinda redeemed himself by knocking out the guy who almost blasted me into pieces of dead meat.”

“Then he went into hiding, such a _ hero_,” the speedster drawled. “Okay, I’ll ask Ralph about reaching out to the psychic. Better stay away from the internet.”

“Thanks,” Iris said with a small smile then a nod at both Barry and Cisco.

“Umm, where are you going, if you don’t mind me asking?” the speedster asked her with his burner phone against his ear. “Hey Ralph, hold on one second.”

“I’m going home, unless Dibny can get us a meeting tonight,” Iris answered with a frown. “Actually I’m too tired to deal with a psychic today, so tomorrow is better. Or Thursday, I can even skip training to meet during the day. With Garcia on sick leave, Lawton won’t be too strict about it.”

“Did I just hear Iris West saying that she’s going _ home_?” Ralph asked on the phone, and Barry put him on speaker.

“You’re on speaker Ralph, she can hear you,” Barry informed the P.I. “Please give her a quick rundown of a gold mark.”

“Actually since she’s _ a cop _ , only heaven knows what the rules are in this case,” Ralph announced. “Which means that every petty criminal and their cats will _freestyle_ some crazy bounty hunter game with you, West, especially the ones who couldn't meet Goldface at the masked ball. My unsolicited advice to you is to stay wherever you are right now since your mark went live an hour ago. At least it doesn't say that you're involved with The Flash, there's a silver lining—see what I did there? Oh, and let Captain West and D.A. West know that they’ll need some security detail until further notice. How is your entire family so high profile? No wonder your brother is on the other side of the Atlantic. Smart kid.”

Barry pinched his lips in order not to laugh at Iris’ hilarious facial expressions as she listened to Ralph Dibny’ quirky sense of humor. 

“We have plenty of room in the guesthouse!” Cisco offered before Iris could tell the private investigator what she thought of his unsolicited advice. It didn’t look like she had nice things to say.

Sergeant West dropped her face in one hand and took out her phone with another.

“Yeah, _ okay _, I’ll call my parents,” she replied after a long sigh.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“Thanks,” Iris told Barry after he handed her one of her overnight bags.

The one from her parents’ place, because neither she nor Barry had been comfortable with him looking through her stuff at her apartment.

“I couldn’t tell which of your parents wanted to hurt me the most,” the speedster joked with a little laugh as he walked backwards towards the door of the guest living room. "I'll let you sleep, goodnight!"

“Hey, Barry, wait,” the cop requested as she decided that she could stay in the Ramon Industries sweats for a bit longer.

“What’s wrong?” he asked as he switched direction seamlessly, and his concern touched her, so she gave him a real smile as she shook her head.

“I’m fine, really,” she assured him as she waved a hand towards the only couch in the room.

It was big enough for a third person to sit between them, bur Iris scooted close to Barry and took one of his hands in hers.

“Seriously Allen, I’m SWAT,” she reminded him gently. “Getting threatened by Goldface and Blacksmith doesn’t freak me out so much anymore. Cisco said that he’ll have the fight simulation ready tomorrow afternoon the latest.”

“Okay,” he replied in a whisper, looking _ very cute _ in his confusion, his gaze going back and forth between her face and their linked hands.

“I just,” Iris started, taking a short pause to keep down the emotions threatening to bubble out of her.

Anger, sadness, frustration…Not for herself, but for _ him _.

“I wanted you to know that if you want to _ talk _, then I’m here,” she said evenly.

“I don’t…I don’t need your_ pity _, Iris,” Barry replied, clearly embarrassed and a bit angry, but he didn’t take his hand away.

“I don’t pity you, Barry,” she corrected him sincerely. “In fact, I sympathize with _ Cisco _ . I don’t condone his actions, and I’m very disappointed that he kept the secret for so long knowing how it affected you…But I understand _ why _ he did it.”

“Then please _tell me_ why, because right now all I can think about is that my best friend, a guy I’ve considered a _ brother _ for eight years, worked against my _ happiness _ . Me wanting to be a CSI had nothing to do with you… _ Not that much _, I mean—Iris, I’m not a stalker, I swear I’ve never looked you up or tailed you, I just…”

“I know,” she reassured him, squeezing his hand as she suppressed a smile at seeing _ The Flash _ stutter shyly, his cheeks going briefly red.

“S.T.A.R. Labs used to be in this area too, the east side of the campus was actually part of it,” he let her know with a jerk of his chin to the side. “I don’t drive, never did after my parents…So I walked from the hoverer station, and I’d see the disparity between this zone and the rest of district four. I…I didn’t love Central City that much back then, Star City had started to grow on me. But Cisco would get me to visit new places once in a while, he had a girlfriend, Kamilla? She worked in district three. She’s the one who mentioned how crimes went basically unpunished over there, so no one bothered calling nine one one. That revolted me. And of course I immediately thought that I could make a difference. I decided to apply to the station in the district I knew best, I had to start in my comfort zone before trying places like district three or four…”

Iris _ understood _. Her father had been against her becoming a cop, but she’d been convinced that she could make a difference too. In fact being the daughter of a cop meant that people in her neighborhood knew her already and felt comfortable approaching her or knew how to act right when they were trying to be naughty.

“And I wanted to make sure that my mentors’ car accident _ was _ an accident,” he added before his voice dropped to a barely audible volume. “I wanted to have access to their case. Did I hope to meet you in case visiting your father was part of your routine? Yes, _ maybe _…But I just wanted to see how you were doing, I definitely didn’t have false hopes about us getting together.”

“That is such a _ different _ tune to what you told me when we _ did _ meet again,” Iris couldn’t help teasing him, flattered by his shyness but wanting to bring back out the cocky side of him.

The spark in his eyes when he looked up from their joined hands told her that she succeeded.

“Well, I did let you_ shoot me _,” he argued playfully as he folded one leg under himself to shift even closer to her. “Those stun gun charges have to be more painful than a heartbreak, so what did I have to lose asking you out?”

“Fair point,” Iris played along, humming quietly as Barry’s free hand found its way up her arm and around her covered shoulder, then his knuckles brushed errant hair strands from her face, the gesture almost identical to what he did that day in the interrogation room.

“Also, Iris,” the speedster added as he leaned over, his face slowly getting closer, his eyes asking one question—_ can I kiss you? _—as his lips asked another: “don’t you know that you’re too beautiful for anyone not to try their luck with you? It’s just not realistic.”

“You’re ridiculous, Barry Allen,” the cop chided him with a quiet laugh, and when she shook her head at him his face was close enough that they ended up exchanging an Eskimo kiss before their lips pressed together.

Iris struggled to stay on her side of the couch, her body almost vibrating with the pent up desire to mold itself against Barry’s.

“Iris,” he called out her name, his voice _ actually _ vibrating. “I…We should—talk?”

“Yes,” she agreed after sucking on his lower lip and taking a deep breath to calm herself down. She shifted away from him, putting much needed distance between herself and his addictive warmth and the soothing white noise of his powers. “Cisco cares a lot about you,” she reminded Barry. “He went to such extremes to keep you around because he _ also _ sees you as his brother and was _ scared _ of losing you. _ He _ felt betrayed by your desire to work with strangers at CCPD rather than with him and Caitlin and Ronnie. And _ you _ feel betrayed that he didn’t let you pursue your individual dream after you _ thought _ that you’d helped him with his own dream. But Barry, it’s clear to me that his dream _ included you _ in it. You must have known it…Right?”

“I did,” he admitted on the other end of the couch before running a hand through his hair and dropping his head back on top of the couch, his eyes on the ceiling. “But I didn't…_ugh_, this is going to sound so dumb.”

“I’m not here to judge, I’m here to _ listen _,” Iris reassured him.

He turned his head to look at her with a deer in the headlights expression.

“What?” Iris asked.

“For a second I thought that this was a dream, you and me talking like _ this _,” he confessed with a rueful smile, “but I certainly don’t have the imagination to make you say nice things like that.”

“Is that your way of avoiding telling me what you think is ‘going to sound so dumb’, or do you just enjoy making me blush?” Iris countered without missing a beat of her rushing heart.

“I _ definitely _ enjoy making you blush,” he admitted with a bedroom voice that made Iris cross her legs.

_ Damn it, _ that tone of his made her feel so… _ hot_, there was no better word for it. It’s like he was hitting her up with his lightning at super speed so she couldn’t feel the initial pain of the electric charge on her skin, only the flames that it ignited inside of her. His voice just left her hot and _ bothered _.

Clearly, the formerly aspiring CSI didn’t know that famous firefighter saying: fires always grew and _ spread _ faster than expected.

“Let’s finish this talk then, because I want to make you blush too,” she voiced with a poker face that she couldn’t maintain when Barry gasped as if he’d been _ burned _.

“That’s not fair,” he whined, his cheeks adopting a deep pink color again even as he shifted on his knees to crawl over her on the couch. “I’m supposed to feel betrayed and angry, not _ in love _ and stupidly _ turned on. _”

“How about we do something about that second state of mind _ right now _,” Iris proposed, “then maybe in an hour or two we can talk you out of the first one?”

“Bold of you to assume that you’ll be able to talk in an hour or two if we start something _ now _,” the speedster commented before kissing her without asking this time.

Iris didn’t mind at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Did you catch my corny fire metaphor? Told you that we weren't going back to the slow burn!


	24. We're Out Of Control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris's excuse for sympathizing with Cisco; another of Barry's reasons for applying to CCPD as a CSI.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm worried that Iris' excuse isn't even good enough! I hadn't expected my beloved readers to get so mad at her 😭 I couldn't change much of this chapter anyways because it's mostly about Barry.
> 
> *Harvest Celebration: Thanksgiving...The one in Canada or the one in the U.S.? Answer to that in a couple flashbacks down the road!
> 
> Chapter title from a favorite song of mine, "Fire on Fire" by Sam Smith.
> 
> Chapter 25 should be posted along with this, you DO NOT want to miss it!

**2016**

Their makeout session was abruptly interrupted when Iris winced in discomfort because of her scratches and bruises. Barry gasped in shock at her bandaged arms and torso when he checked under her sweater.

Despite the SWAT officer telling him that she'd been declared fit for missions, the speedster convinced her to ask for a day off from her father.

"You were actually thinking of coming to work with a _ bounty on your head _?" Captain West almost shouted on the phone, making Iris regret putting him on speaker. "Where did I go wrong with you, Iris?"

"Sweetheart, of course you should stay home—I mean, stay wherever you are right now," Francine chimed in more diplomatically. "Just keep us updated, please? We know that you can handle yourself, but this is Goldface we are talking about. Whatever you do, be careful."

"I will, mom, dad," Iris promised softly, feeling like a chastised kid.

"Allen," her dad called out sternly.

"Umm, yes…Captain?" Barry stuttered back, shocked to have the older cop address him directly.

"Use these powers of yours to do _ good _," he instructed The Flash. "You proved that you have it in you last year."

Iris' eyebrows went up at her father's boldness. The dark speedster could kill any of them in a heartbeat, yet Joe West was talking to him as if he was a new recruit of the MFU.

"Protect Iris, speedster, or you'll have to deal with the powers of the _ West family _," the D.A. added as Barry stared dumbfounded at Iris' cell phone.

"Yes ma'am, of course," he finally replied, sounding very intimidated by Iris' mother. "I'll make sure that Iris…" he started then glanced at Iris’ narrowed eyes, "that she has backup and a solid exit strategy if she gets in trouble."

Joe West grumbled something unintelligible on the other side of the phone call, but his wife chuckled.

"That's good enough for now, Barry, thank you," she replied sincerely. "Well, goodnight then. Iris Ann West, you make sure to rest and eat properly, alright?"

"Yes mom! Goodnight, love you both!" Iris rushed through her words before quickly hanging up.

She let out a long sigh, hiding her face behind her hand.

She was in serious danger, but of course her parents had to treat her like some _ teenage girl _who missed curfew or something. How embarrassing!

"They really care about you," Barry commented softly, and Iris looked at him, alerted by the longing that was so clear in his voice.

"Don't let them fool you," Iris warned him with a huff. "One left me behind when she moved to Europe for her career, the other is totally unsupportive of _ my _ career, even years after I've proved to be a good cop. In fact, I had to request a general anonymization of the applications to the district seven station to make sure that _ Captain West _ didn't jeopardize my chance of joining the MFU."

"Really?" Barry asked, shocked. "Well, I wish I had that option when I applied…"

“It’s an option only for those who can prove that they might receive unfair treatment,” the cop specified with a gentle shake of her head. “But you see, family does _ stupid things _ like sabotaging your career all the time. I only made it because the system had my back…It might not even have mattered if your application had been anonymized since Cisco’s a hacker. At least he cheated to _ keep you _ in the family. My own father didn’t want me to be part of the _Wests' legacy._ His father was a detective too, and I don’t know what assignment she had but his grandmother Esther was a cop as well.”

“Still, your parents love you,” Barry argued gently as he shifted on the couch, leaning against one arm and placing his elbows atop his bent knees. 

It made something twist in Iris’ heart to see The Flash taking minimal space on a couch that couldn't even accommodate his whole body.

At that moment, the fastest man alive looked a lot like the sweet boy that Iris used to know: the self-effacing cute nerd who at times would look deeply lonely in a school that was always crowded and buzzing with activities.

Her heart ached for that cute nerd, and for the handsome, powerful, yet still lonely-looking man he ended up becoming. 

"So did mine," Barry resumed softly. "I took their love and kindness as my birthright, as something _ permanent _, until one day I was brutally reminded that nothing good lasts forever in this world."

Iris didn't know what to say, then she remembered that she didn't have to say anything. She was there to _ listen _.

"Getting an education and being a contributing member of society was the least I could do to honor their memory," the speedster stated. "So I studied hard and landed an internship at the prestigious S.T.A.R. Labs. Yes I was a 4.0 student, but I still felt unworthy of the opportunity because the people who worked there were literal _ geniuses _. Tessa Morgan and Harrison Wells were hands down the smartest people in the history of Central City, so I knew that I had to work long and hard to get a favorable letter of recommendation from them."

Iris felt privileged to get an insight into the thoughts of a younger Barry's mind.

The Barry Allen _ before _ the particle accelerator explosion.

"Despite all my efforts, I don't think that they would've noticed me had Cisco not done so first," the biochemist claimed. "And Cisco only became aware of my existence because I was the only other person who used the thirteenth floor's break room, where he kept his stash of candies."

Barry paused, his jaw tight, and it took a moment for Iris to realize that he was trying not to cry.

"Tessa and Harrison didn't just acknowledge my hard work," he recounted with emotion. "They gave me a _ life _ outside of the lab. They would invite me to conferences and we'd make fun of the inferior nutritional value of the appetizers with Caitlin; they would sit with me during breaks to cheer on Cisco and Hartley whenever they decided to upgrade the telescope imaging software we used to visualize the stars above our heads; they'd video call me on my birthday and on holidays when I couldn’t catch a flight back to Central City to join them—when I _ didn’t want to _, because sometimes I just hated those reminders that my parents weren’t there to celebrate with me. I have no idea how she knew about my shellfish allergy, but Tessa even saved me from an unfortunate dietary accident the first time I sampled the impressive feast at the Ramons' annual Harvest Celebration* dinner."

He smiled briefly at that memory, then turned melancholic again.

"I readily accepted Cisco's easy friendship, but when Caitlin and Ronnie started texting me during the school year, and then when Dr. Morgan and Dr. Wells stopped calling me 'Mr. Allen' altogether—I realized that I had gained a _ new family _ . I wasn't _ alone _ anymore."

Just like Barry, Iris managed to keep her tears in check, but it was a close call.

She remembered crying rivers for Barry when she'd learned that he'd lost his parents right after starting college. 

Maybe that's when she'd started developing feelings for him. Not out of pity, but out of compassion for a soul she'd known to be good before going through one of the most tragic events in life: the loss of family.

"When Tessa and Harrison died in a car accident, _ just like my parents _ ," Barry resumed before pausing and swallowing audibly. "I thought…I thought that I was _ cursed _, that I was destined to be alone after all, without a family to call my own."

"Barry," Iris chided him softly as she placed a hand on one of his elbows.

"Told you it would sound dumb," he pointed out with a shrug. "I did want to help Cisco realize his dream, that's why I gave him what I thought was my most valuable contribution: financial support. He didn't need my brain. And _ I _ didn't need to go through the pain of losing family _ again _. If I worked with strangers to help other strangers, even if things got tough I'd be safe from having to voice my depressive thoughts to another damn therapist."

Oh. 

Of course Barry Allen knew more about going to therapy than Iris. He'd lost loved ones twice, he'd had to have _hundreds of hours_ of therapy under his belt just from recovering from the loss of his parents. Star City University would've made therapy mandatory for him, and hopefully his friends from S.T.A.R. Labs had encouraged him to seek counseling after Dr. Morgan and Dr. Wells' deaths.

His apology at the charity dinner for landing her in a shrink's office had been _ sincere _ then.

"Thank you for listening, Iris,” he told her as he unfolded one arm to hold the hand she had on his other elbow. “I know that I don’t deserve your sympathy…Not after what I’ve done to you. To your colleagues.”

Iris blinked at the admission.

Until now, Barry had been stubbornly unapologetic about killing cops, even Peterson who hadn’t been dirty.

“I was wrong for killing your team leader,” he voiced quietly, somberly, and though Iris could see shame in his green eyes, she couldn’t detect the corresponding guilt.

_ Can he still feel guilt? _ She wondered. _ After all he’s done to help others, can his mind afford to feel guilty for every single one of his kills? _

“But I thought that you’d _ shot me, _ Iris,” he added as he dropped his hand from hers. “I thought that you’d shot me and _ laughed _ at my pain. Darbinyan told me that you wanted to _ talk _ , but clearly you’d already judged me a sinner beyond redemption…So what was _ one more crime _ going to change? At least it would help me hurt you back in some way. I felt so betrayed, and I wanted you to suffer for it. But I couldn’t, I _ can’t _ lay a finger on you, not like that. So I did the next worst thing I could think of in that warehouse.”

Iris almost cursed Eddie Thawne and Hannibal Bates for their deception, but then she remembered that both were dead. Barry had killed the soldier himself to make sure that Iris wouldn't be used as bait anymore.

“I might still hurt you indirectly again,” the cop killer warned the cop as he unfolded his legs to sit at the edge of the couch, his gaze down on his feet. “I’m not like Cisco or Caitlin and Ronnie. Heck, even Hartley must feel guilty about those cops in district three, but _ me _? I’m different. Not because I’m a meta-human, I’m definitely different from who I was when I first became a speedster.”

He held one hand up and made red sparks of electricity dance around his fingers before making them disappear then lowering his hand.

“My lightning used to be yellow, _ golden _,” he explained before Iris could ask him what he meant by him being different as a speedster. 

“Sometimes it would partially turn red, but never for long, only for a second or two when I got very angry or frustrated,” he added before looking straight into Iris’ eyes. “Until the night I_ killed _ the first leader of the military MFU. That night, my lightning went fully red and remained like that. Red is my favorite color, so I wouldn't have minded if my lightning had been red from the start...But it changed colors as if my powers acknowledged that I’d crossed the fundamental line between right and wrong.”

Iris tucked away the fact that red was his favorite color as she held his gaze, waiting for _ her guilt _ to come.

Because she _should_ feel guilty for having feelings for a man like that, a man who’d clearly embraced this darker version of himself—his nickname ‘the dark speedster’ had been aptly chosen by CCPN. 

She was a cop and he was a dangerous criminal. Being in a relationship with him would be wrong…_ Was wrong _ , because they _ already _ were in a relationship. Maybe if she'd become a meta-human too, there would've been a clear difference in her powers before and after she'd fallen for Barry.

“But that same night, I also became _ faster _ ,” Barry informed her as he reached out to gently take her hand again. “I suddenly could focus on my powers _ better _. I started mastering skills me and the others had only theorized I could do: phasing, using my lightning without needing momentum to generate it, going into flash time. And last year, Caitlin told me that I’ve become mostly immune to the stun gun charges. They might block my powers for a few minutes, but they can’t knock me out anymore, only hurt and burn a bit. If my powers hadn’t been suppressed, I’m sure that I could’ve walked right through that electric wall Silvertongue used on me at the masked ball.”

Iris felt his powers hovering just under his skin, almost seeping into her own the way speedster’s abnormal warmth soothed a scratch that she’d earned on the rooftop earlier that day.

“So I’m not a good person, Iris West,” he declared with an almost imperceptible lift of one side of his mouth, “but I’m _powerful_. I’m the fastest man alive. I can give you whatever you want, and I’ll never let anything harm you if you let me protect you. I know that you can protect yourself, but you'll never have to try too hard if I’m by your side.”

The cop noted his word choice: if he was by _ her side _, not the other way around even though he was the strongest between the two of them. 

It was crazy, that love he had for her. It was deep and twisted and Iris definitely should find it scary, but she _ didn’t _ because there was something alluring about its strength and endurance.

Barry Allen had loved her since they were seventeen. It had been _ ten years, _and he’d waited until they’d played a fake couple to even steal a kiss from her. How patient of him.

Iris' own feelings seemed rushed, hungry, uncontrollable…Just like a fire being fanned out by the powers of the _ wind warrior _.

“Okay,” she heard herself say with a little nod of acknowledgement.

“Okay?” he repeated, his lips stretching in a genuine smile, and seriously it was a sin that such a dangerous man could look so _ adorable _.

“Okay,” she echoed before lightening up the mood by parroting his promise to her parents: “you have my authorization to be my backup and to offer me an exit strategy if I ever get in trouble, Allen.”

“Seriously, I have no idea what I was trying to say before you gave me that warning look. I was too freaked out by your mother’s threat,” he confessed with a light blush on his cheeks, and Iris threw her head back to laugh her heart out.

But then she coughed and whimpered a bit at her sore ribs.

“Damn it.” Barry reacted, half concerned half angry. “Rathaway better stay hidden forever or I’ll_ bruise him _,” he promised before he shifted closer to her. “Can I try something?” he asked the cop softly as he extended his hands and held them above her shoulders.

“Sure,” she allowed without thinking too hard about it.

She might as well trust him unconditionally now. Not that she’d truly ever doubted that he couldn't physically hurt her after that brazen confession in the interrogation room two years ago.

**2009**

Fuck, no, _ NO _, he’d run too far, this wasn’t even the right day, let alone the right place…

When and _ where _ the hell had he travelled to, this office didn't look like—

“Miss Lewis?” he heard his own voice call out, but his pitch was higher and he sounded so down…

Oh.

OH.

Barry sped around one of the SCU counselors’ office and tucked himself between a wall and a bookshelf, suppressing a sneeze because _ of course _ it was all dusty, even in 2009 no one read real books anymore.

From his hiding spot, the speedster could see his younger self inch his way into the room, looking around and sighing in disappointment that his assigned therapist wasn’t there.

If memory served, Miss Lewis had just stepped out to the bathroom and would be back shortly.

Might as well leave now before _ two people _ from the past witnessed his red lightning.

Well, if he left_ in flash time _, then even his very observant self would be none the wiser.

So Barry waited for his powers to build back up after expending them to time travel—it didn’t take long, his powers seemed just as desperate as him to _ save Iris _, they felt stronger than ever before despite what had happened only ten minutes ago—then he calmly walked towards the wall that would lead him outside of the room while time trickled extremely slowly outside of his bubble.

But The Flash saw his younger self’s face in his peripheral vision, and couldn’t help stopping in his tracks.

He remembered that day: he’d been in line at the cafeteria, the memory of his mom calling him ‘Bear’ surfacing because someone behind him had talked about seeing a bear while camping.

That hadn’t even been the worst of his problems that day: he had broken up with Meena just the night before. Over a _ video call, _ because Meena had refused to wait for them to meet during the weekend to ‘talk.’

As he corrected his course and walked towards the desk, Barry searched his memory to remember Meena Dhawan.

Smart, assertive, occasionally funny but only when Cisco was around, and Cisco brought out the lightest part of everyone.

But that’s not what had drawn Barry to the other S.T.A.R. Labs intern, no. Meena was _Iris’_ height—but not Iris’ built, as the love of his life was more athletic than his ex—and had the dusky skin and long, very dark brown hair that had reminded him of Iris. Though the two of them had beautiful smiles, their facial features were nothing alike. Regardless, anyone who saw both women wouldn’t miss the similarities in their appearances.

Wow, what a dumbass jerk Barry had been, to Meena and to himself.

Iris was _ Iris _ , and no one could replace her. Even the amazing Meena Dhawan couldn’t compare to Iris West, who was _ perfection _ made flesh.

The speedster casually sat on Miss Lewis's big armchair—shrinks and their chairs, seriously—and stared at his younger self.

He looked so devastated, the wound of losing his parents re-opened in his already broken heart.

Meena _ had been _ amazing, and being with her had made Barry think about settling back in Central City for good. But it wasn’t meant to be. Not then.

“She’s not Iris,” Barry uselessly told his younger self frozen in time. "You were right to break it off."

He almost reached out to fix the glasses on his nose, but thought better of it and leaned back in the chair.

“It’s okay kid,” the speedster reassured himself, “Iris will make everything better eventually.”

Which was why he had to go to the right time and make sure that Iris never got hurt in the first place, he _had to_ change those few seconds of the original timeline.

“Hold onto these feelings,” he instructed his twenty year old self as he stood up. “You’re not crazy, you’re not delusional. Iris will love you back, and it will be _ heaven _.”

Of course this non-speedster, college version of himself couldn’t hear him, but that was okay.

It was best not to disturb this part of the timeline.  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> That flashback is important, matter of fact all the flashbacks from now on are important to the overarching subplot of this entire fic. But let's get a little West-Allen loving, shall we? 😉😙
> 
> Edit, because I wasn't caught up on the show: I'm getting paranoid, because COME ON, after all these years, NOW they have Rathaway make a cameo??? And Barry talking about his parents? Not his daughter Nora, whose death is fresh, but his parents???
> 
> In other news, I love Chester!!!


	25. My Only Direction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> West-Allen! West-Allen! West-Allen!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope that you'll enjoy this chapter because it was one of the most self-indulgent things I've written in my short career as a West-Allen fanfic author..."Change Positions" is the winner in that category, so if you haven't read it yet, I invite you to do it after you read this!
> 
> There's a little bit of plot in the flashback, which is actually a fast-forward, but is it really???
> 
> *UDHR=Universal Declaration of Human Rights 
> 
> Chapter title from "Fire on Fire" by Sam Smith

**2016**

As he’d told Iris half an hour ago, Barry had a great mastery of his powers ever since his lightning had turned red.

Which was why, despite the fact that this was his first time using them to heal rather than to harm, he was pretty good at it_ . _

It was nothing extraordinary, really: his abnormally high body heat combined with his ability to vibrate his hands made the massage extra soothing for Iris’ sore body.

Therefore, he didn’t mind when her muffled moans of relief and pleasure gradually became less frequent right before her body literally melted into the mattress of the bed they’d relocated to.

She fell asleep on her front, her head on top of her folded hands, while he was working out the last of the strain in her hamstrings. 

With a smile on his lips, Barry stopped his ministrations and gently turned her on her back before covering her up with the bedsheets and the light bedcover.

But when he stood up to leave after adjusting the light of the nightstand lamps to the dimmest setting, one of her hands suddenly reached out to grip his wrist.

“Where you goin’,” she asked sleepily.

“To bed?” he replied in a whisper.

“Bed’s right here, Bear,” she mumbled as she turned on her side, letting him go and making her hand flop right in the middle of the bed in a clear invitation for him to join her.

“Did you…Did you say ‘bear’, like the big furry animal?” Barry had to ask even though he didn’t want her to fully wake again.

It felt like _ he _ was the one who was half-asleep because surely this was a dream, there was no way that Iris West had just called him his childhood pet name in the same sentence that she’d told him to sleep _ in her bed _.

Barry sped through changing into the too big sweatpants that she’d discarded in favor of her own sleepshirt, remaining bare-chested because the sweater was too small for him.

“Hmm? Yeah like the animal,” she answered belatedly with a pleased sigh while she scooted closer to him once he slipped under the cover. “Cute and warm, looks deceptively inoffensive, like you…”

By the time Barry’s short-circuited brain finally processed the info, Iris was fully asleep again, breathing softly against his naked upper arm.

The speedster thought that he wouldn’t be able to sleep, that he would stay awake the whole night to savor this moment.

But it felt so good to be lying down right next to Iris like that, to finally share the intimacy he had been craving to have with her, that he soon slipped into the smoothest, dreamless sleep he’d had in a long time. 

He almost thought that his dream had just started when he woke up to the sound of running water in the adjacent bathroom, and after dozing in and out of sleep for a couple minutes he woke up fully and turned his head in time to see Iris just as she came out of it.

He felt himself getting hard as he looked her over in the soft golden light of the nightstand lamp. There was something innocently sensual in her silhouette with that silky short-sleeved shirt that barely covered the top of her thighs.

She was gathering her long and now frizzy hair into one big braid, the task slowing down her quiet steps towards the bed.

The bathroom was on Barry's side, so she had to go around the bed to get back to hers, an option she discarded in her clearly still sleepy state—according to the nightstand clock, it was just half-past three in the morning. 

Unaware that he was awake, she tried to discreetly crawl over his body to return to her side of the bed.

First of all, _ cute _ , but also, _ fuck _, Iris West was literally climbing him.

In a situation like this he was supposed to pretend to be asleep and let her return to dreamland, wasn’t he? Too bad.

“Oh my God, Allen!” she exclaimed in a stage whisper when he moved to stop her progression after only one of her legs made it past his body, and her shock made her drop astride him.

He held her at the waist to keep her where she was, right where he _ wanted her. _

“Hey,” he greeted with a smile that widened further when she lightly slapped his naked chest in retaliation.

“Don’t ‘hey’ me, you almost gave me a heart attack!” she complained before frowning slightly after a glance at the clock. “Though I probably woke you up, so sorry about that,” she added more softly as she then rubbed his left pecs in apology.

_ Fuck, _ she was so soft right there on top of him, physically and emotionally, and it was only making him harder… 

“Oh,” Iris whispered as she noticed his state of arousal under her, one hand on the bed but the other still on his chest, right above his abnormally fast heartbeat that was getting even faster.

But from that close Barry could now see the bruises and light scratches on her arms, no longer hidden by bandages since he’d removed those before giving her a massage earlier in the night.

“Sorry,” he immediately apologized, disappointed in himself for not remembering her discomfort. “Yeah you startled me too, that’s all, umm, go on…” he prompted her as he gently lifted her off of him to help her swing her other leg over.

Instead, she firmly dropped back down on him and rubbed her pelvis against his, rolling her hips briefly with a confident undulation that brought stars to Barry’s vision.

“Iris!” he hissed as his hands gripped her middle a bit tighter to immobilize her. “Damn it, that was _ evil _. I said sorry!”

“That’s not revenge for surprising me, speedster,” she corrected him as she lowered her upper body to bring her face a mere inch from his, her minty breath fanning across his face. “That’s to persuade you that _me_ _riding you_ is a very good idea, so don’t you dare change your mind.”

“Oh,” it was his turn to say in a whisper as he felt himself flush in both embarrassment and arousal.

She’d guessed his ulterior motives and was favorable to them, but…

“You’re sore,” he reminded her, in case her sleepy brain was conveniently blocking her pain.

“Thanks to your amazing massage, now it only feels like the type of soreness I get the day after a vigorous workout,” she reassured him before straightening back up, then leaning over to the nightstand, opening its sole drawer. “I know this is a guest room, not a hotel one, but…” 

“Huh? What are you looking for?” Barry questioned, his mind truly too slow to keep up with the perfection of this moment.

“Condoms, Allen,” she explained with an unimpressed lift of an eyebrow before she fully got off of him to boost the lighting of the nightstand lamp.

“I suppose that your metabolism keeps you disease-free,” she guessed accurately as she then searched through her overnight bag, “and my safe week just started, but who knows how long _ your sperm _ can live? I’m not raising a meta-human kid until I make captain, or until they at least add meta-humans in the second article of the UDHR*…In case being a meta is hereditary. Is it? Phew, they’re not expired!” she then exclaimed cheerfully after inspecting the box of condoms she did find.

“Ow,” Barry breathed out after pinching his own cheek hard when Iris made it back on the bed after dimming the lights again, dropping two squares on her side of the bed before straddling him and taking off her nightshirt.

“Ow?” she echoed belatedly after she also dropped the shirt on her side of the bed, then she eyed the red spot on his face.

“Did you just pinch yourself?” she asked before fondly rolling her eyes at him. “That’s so cheesy, Barry. You’ve seen me naked before. This isn't a dream.”

Barry was left breathless by her natural beauty regardless, but that’s not why he’d made sure that this wasn’t a dream.

No, he’d pinched himself to verify that he hadn’t imagined Iris West implying that she wouldn’t mind having_ a child with him _ in the future.

Giving him a family of his own.

“Are you falling back asleep on me?” she questioned with a teasing tone as she started rolling her hips again. “You seem a bit lethargic there, speedster.”

Oh, she really was the playful type of lover, huh?

“Game on, Sergeant,” Barry announced as he brought his hands back to her waist but then ran his hands all over her bruised abdomen (the worst bruises had changed colors, that was a good sign) checking that she truly wasn’t in pain anymore.

The quiet whimpers she let out seemed to be exclusively sounds of pleasure, so he slipped one hand to the middle of her back and wiggled a bit around before he could use his other hand to get the bed sheets and cover off his lower body.

His movement led her to lean backwards just as he’d anticipated, so he didn’t waste time to crunch up and kiss his way up her torso, smiling when her hums of approval morphed into breathy and uninhibited moans when he sucked on one nipple. He felt her fingers curl up on his shins, where she’d placed her hands for support.

“I’m still…gonna—_ oh fuck _, yes, you can bite a little...Ah!” She tried to tell him something in between her fast intakes of breath, but his obedience of her quick instruction seemed to interrupt her train of thoughts.

A warm dampness on Barry’s upper thigh made him change his plans about speed-removing his own clothes and grabbing one of the condoms.

First, he _ needed _ to taste Iris again. Not fully eat her out, just a little tease.

Or so he’d thought, but she tasted too good for him to stop once he got between her legs.

He remembered that he had access to his powers when she was already close to orgasm. Nonetheless, the high-pitched whine he earned from making his mouth vibrate on her left him smug…And _ painfully _ hard.

"I was…fuck! I was supposed to _ ride you _!" Iris complained after she curled up on her side and away from him, one of her legs spasming intermittently.

"You still can," he encouraged her from behind before taking some time to calm himself down while he kissed her shoulders and neck, smiling against her skin when he felt a full body shiver make her tremble.

"So he says after turning my legs into noodles," Iris mumbled before flopping down on her back.

Barry's ribs were at risk of fracturing because his chest filled with an infinite amount of adoration when she opened her arms to him half a beat before he leaned down to kiss her collarbone, then the underside of her jaw, all the while enjoying her firm caresses up and down his back, shoulders and upper arms.

His emotions made his skin tingle, and the forearms he was propped on shook a little bit as he kept kissing Iris' dewy skin. 

If his mouth hadn't gotten busy kissing hers deeply a few seconds later, the speedster might have cried in happiness right then.

He did let out a short cry when he felt Iris' hand wrap around his length, her small fist gently then firmly pistoning him.

"Look at you, you're leaking so much," the cop whispered in his ear and_ fuck yes, _ Iris was into dirty talk.

"We agreed on me riding you, but you couldn't help eating me out, could you?" She asked breathily, and Barry's answer came out as a drawn out moan. 

He couldn't tell if it was from her twisting her hand on an upstroke or her nibbling the skin right under his ear. Maybe both.

"Sucked me long and deep like I was made of honey," she kept going, and fuck, she had to stop talking _ now _ , Barry was already too close to climax, and he could feel his powers _ rioting _ under his skin…

He tried to warn her, but coherent words couldn't find their way up his vibrating vocal cords—

"You really are a greedy bear, aren't you speedster?" Iris whispered against his lips, mercilessly sending him over the edge.

He had no control over spilling all over her hand and her thighs, but at least he managed to channel his powers into entering flash time.

It was his speedster's skill that consumed the most energy, so he let it run for as long as it took for him to catch his breath.

"That's pretty," Iris whispered in awe, her breaths sounding barely more controlled than his.

Barry opened the eyes he hadn't noticed he'd closed, and _ yeah… _

His red lightning was dancing around the bed, its light painting the white sheets pink and giving red highlights to Iris' hair and skin.

She smiled at the electric cage around them, unbothered and definitely not scared of being confined alone with him—a stark contrast to how she'd looked the first time he'd brought her into flash time.

Their encounter in the interrogation room felt like a lifetime ago.

"When I was in the SCU, Kendra Saunders decided to give all of my boyfriends the same codename because she thought learning their names was pointless," the cop told him out of the blue, her voice as soft as the clean hand she was brushing along Barry's side.

The speedster blinked, wondering why she was telling him that.

He wasn't jealous of her exes, not anymore. They're the dumb ones who let her go, the way he _ never _ would now that she'd agreed to have him. He'd do anything to convince her to keep him.

"The codename was supposed to go with mine, Purple, my favorite color," she explained with a one-sided smirk. "Coincidentally, blue was all of my exes' favorite color. It's a pretty popular color, I supposed."

Oh. That's why Iris had looked him funny in Rogues when he'd chosen the codename Red. 

Well, he'd known about purple being her favorite color, just like Saunders, so it made sense that they'd both come up with the same logic to name Iris' partners.

It bode well for Barry that he wasn't another blue in Iris' life, he didn't want to be lumped together with her exes.

"But since Snart's codename used to be 'Blue', Saunders decided that my boyfriend's codename should be 'Red' instead, regardless of their favorite color," the sergeant added before she stared up into the speedster's eyes. "In hindsight, I can tell that it was my clue that none of my exes would last. They had the wrong favorite color."

She didn’t say ‘but you don't' yet Barry heard the words all the same.

_ Holy shit. _

The promise of their first kiss after their third date, the mistaken Godai prophecy, the soulmate test, and now _this?_

For years, Barry had felt stupid and crazy to hold a torch for someone he thought he'd never meet again. His feelings defied logic, couldn’t be explained by science…though science said that if he didn’t feed his obsession, it would eventually go away.

That was why he’d never looked up Iris West: he didn’t want to find more reasons to adore her. He’d just _known_ that she would’ve grown to be an amazing woman, and he couldn’t afford to get false hopes. He’d decided that if he had to contact her again, it had to be by coincidence…like them running into each other at the police station in district seven.

When Barry’s application to join CCPD had been rejected, he’d concluded that his chances to see Iris again had finally and truly been squashed. No running into each other.

Then in 2014, when the dark speedster had seen Iris in uniform, pointing a stun gun at him, his first instinct had been to _ run to her _ and abduct her. He'd wanted to keep her for himself, knowing fully well that he didn’t deserve her, but who in that wretched city did? And even if she hated him at first, Stockholm syndrome would eventually kick in, right?

But The Flash hadn’t been able to put his plan into action after he heard Iris shout at him to freeze. In her voice he’d detected strength, resilience and determination, and those were traits he didn't wish to steal away from her, the way he’d stolen money and despicable men’s lives.

And now here he was, his shock and awe reflected in the warm eyes of the love of his life, realizing that _ towards Iris West _ truly was the only way he could ever run. 

**20xx?**

Barry’s powers didn’t involve enhanced senses, but he swore he could tell that the air itself was different.

He wasn’t even in the United States, was he? _ Shit. _

Why had his strong but clearly confused powers brought him here, then? Two thousand nine at the Star City University campus had made sense, the time and place had been based on his memories. So had been the stop in two thousand eleven, then backwards to two thousand eight, then two thousand fourteen...But_ this?_

It was an apartment, maybe a house? It looked well-lived. The building was old but renovated.

The presence of real books—_ children books _, even—made him frown, then helped him figure out a vague location.

_ Europe_. Only a few countries in Western Europe had managed to keep up with strict regulations on recycling paper, so real books were still a thing there and nowhere else in the world, except for book collectors and _ shrinks. _This place didn't seem to belong to either group of people, so Europe it was.

Barry phased through multiple rooms, almost slowing down when he saw two tiny heads with curly hair individually poking out of the covers of two identical beds.

(Good kids, letting their parents sleep…_Or, _ super energetic kids who slept deeply after playing _ hard_.) 

He still didn’t get it. Why Europe? The only country he had any relation to was Switzerland because of Iris’s family, or maybe Jesse? Tessa and Harrison’s daughter lived in Switzerland too, and it was ridiculous that only now Barry wondered if Jesse Wells and Wally West knew each other.

The sight that welcomed Barry when he phased into yet another bedroom made him drop out of flash time.

_ Iris. _ That was Iris sleeping in the vintage-looking canopy bed, most of her _ naked body _ hidden by the bedcovers.

From his glances outside the window, Barry guessed that it was morning time in the fall, just like where he came from…_ And _ just like in two thousand nine and the other three dates he'd been, so _ there _ was his powers’ logic: he was traveling to the same date, but he was having trouble landing at the exact moment Barry needed to change the timeline. Well, he was totally having trouble landing in the _ right year _of the same date.

So yeah, the speedster was currently in early fall somewhere in Western Europe, but the room was somehow steamy. From the heater? 

_ No idiot, don’t delude yourself_, Barry thought as he looked around, taking in clothes carelessly thrown on the floor and a couple empty packets of condoms on the crumpled sheets. The room was steamy from the _hot morning sex_ that had sent Iris back to sleep.

Barry didn’t know if Iris had ever visited Switzerland in the past and had a torrid affair there, but he didn’t have to know that.

This was clearly _ the future_, not the past. He couldn’t see Iris’ face to see the mark of time on her body, but it was likely that the children in the other room were hers.

She had both an engagement ring and a wedding ring on her left hand, after all. It wasn’t too far fetched to assume that she was _ married with kids_.

Iris West—had she changed her last name like her mother?—had married some Swiss banker or something.

Most of Barry was relieved, because that meant that he’d managed to save her life after all. She was alive in the future.

The rest of him was _ devastated_.

Not even forty-eight hours ago, he’d been the one in bed with Iris and had been convinced that their love was somehow destined, after a whole year of denying that it was possible. Iris had even hypothesized having _ meta-human _ children.

Yet here was the irrefutable proof that Iris had left him and married someone else, had built her own family and it wasn’t _ his_. 

Barry was certain that he would never leave Central City, not after everything that had happened in the past few years…Did that mean that he was _ dead_? Maybe that’s why Iris had left their hometown and rebuilt her life across the Atlantic. 

But could a speedster travel to a time when he wasn’t supposed to exist? 

_ Damn it. _

This was why time traveling had to be backwards, _ never forward _, his powers were a total mess—

An indescribable but sharp feeling brought Barry out of his musing and he immediately returned into flash time.

That didn’t help hide him from the man who appeared from the door leading to what had to be the master bathroom.

“That was definitely one of the worst minutes of my life right there,” his own voice said. “I remember it like it was yesterday.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> There will be a bit more West-Allen next chapter because I know that you will hate me if I rob you of Barry and Iris 'true' first time LOL.  
Then back to business. Time is money, and Goldface doesn't play with either.
> 
> Re: Edit about the show: so Iris is back to having one minute screen time, huh? The filler episodes are so useless. Totalfanfav kindly informed me that it's to allow the main cast to rest. I still don't care about filler episodes. And I still think that the CGI is worse than before because CW went broke with all the cameos in Crisis.  
This show aggravates me 75% of the time. Still watching for the 25%. The West-Allen better be strong in the last few episodes!


	26. We Love And Feel The Truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More West-Allen and a fun Team Flash moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to get back into the Silvertongue/Goldface +Blacksmith plot in this chapter but eh, why not more smut and fluff along with some humor? This chapter is decently long so I hope you don't mind me posting it alone. No flashback/fastforward.
> 
> Chapter title from "Fire On Fire" by Sam Smith.

**2016**

“You promised not to manhandle me anymore,” Iris recalled with a huff as her hair settled after flying around because Barry had moved her at superspeed.

“You call _ this _ manhandling?” the speedster talked back with a smirk as he carefully wiped her hand with a damp towel, his stomach already cleaned up similarly. “I thought that you were tougher than that, Sergeant West.”

She rolled her eyes at him, seated against the headboard of the bed while a few seconds ago she’d been lying on her back in the middle of the queen size bed.

After spending a ridiculous amount of time cleaning her hand and her thighs, Barry sped towards and back from the bathroom again, then flopped right next to her against the wooden frame, picking up and tearing one of the condom packets half open and dropping it between them. He then extended his arms towards Iris.

Smiling, she let him lift her and gently place her on his lap, and both of them shivered when his (already?) half hard member brushed against her pubic bone. 

“Accelerated metabolism,” the speedster explained when he saw her stare down at his renewed state of arousal. 

They didn’t talk much as they kissed and caressed each other for long minutes, not until Barry lay flat on his back but kept his knees up, entering her drenched pussy slowly, filling her up tightly, making her moan and whine at the maddeningly slow pace he set on at first. It was a slow ride, but definitely the most pleasurable one Iris could remember.

“You feel so good Iris…” the speedster whispered against her lips between sweet kisses when she lowered down to have his body heat soothe her still bruised torso just as his big warm hands rubbed her arms and back. 

He rocked up into her steadily, leading her to a gradual climb towards completion, his right fingers teasing her clit now and then. “I love you so much, Iris,” he told her softly, his voice gaining a little vibration as his hips picked up the pace.

“Barry,” she whispered back as she tightened around him, her inner walls fluttering in response to the mounting pleasure she was experiencing. 

(The reply to his declaration was there in her heart, but she didn't have the brain power to deal with her feelings when her body was overwhelmed with warm, healing bliss just this side of too much.)

“Next time," he started innocently before his voice went full on vibrating, and Iris gasped in surprise when he gripped her braided hair firmly.

"Next time, I'll fuck you so good that you’ll scream until you lose your voice,” he promised as he started to finger her clit in earnest with his free hand, making Iris mewl.

She lost the rhythm of her rolling hips, unable to match the speedster's fast pace now. 

Barry seamlessly took full control of the ride, gripping her tightly with both hands and thrusting in and out of her with sharp motions, grinding and rotating his pelvis against hers at irregular intervals to target her bundle of nerves.

“Have you ever screamed during sex, Iris?” Barry asked her, and she whimpered as she shook her head wordlessly, not daring opening her mouth in fear of moaning too loudly.

His strokes started making obscene squelching noises because she was _ so wet _now. She hid her face in the crook of his neck.

"Wanna know how it feels, hmm _ Sergeant _ ?” he asked another question between his shallow breaths, but Iris couldn’t answer him, she couldn’t focus enough to _ speak _ on top of struggling to breathe in enough air so she wouldn’t pass out.

Then Barry started to make his dick _ vibrate _ inside of her, and Iris hurried to lift up on her hands, getting as far away from his ears as possible so she wouldn't deafen him with the loud scream that clawed its way out of her throat right then.

“Yes, Iris, just like that,” he commented satisfyingly before leaning up to lick off the sweat dripping down her neck, his tongue briefly pressing into her pulse point while she was vainly trying to keep her volume down.

Then he resumed telling her his fantasy, whispering in her ear, his voice back to normal.

“You would need to get the next day off, to give yourself time to recover your voice," he warned her while still pistoning into her with his vibrating cock.

Iris flopped back on top of him and latched her lips onto his neck to quiet herself down.

(Because, what if there were other people living in the building? They might call security, or worse, _ the police _, after hearing her scream as if she was being stabbed by a serial killer...Well, the serial killer part was accurate.)

"You don't want your teammates to ask why your voice is all raw, do you?" Barry asked, almost innocently, but mischief and smugness were lurking in his breathless tone. "Not now that Garcia knows that I’m your _ soulmate. _”

Those words, combined with a deep, intensely vibrating stroke, dragged the cop over the edge and she moaned loudly in Barry's ear this time.

Iris barely had the strength to keep her hips moving a bit to help Barry join her in rapture, which he quickly did after he let out a loud grunt of his own. She heard him slap his hand on the headboard behind him, and a loud snap of static electricity resonated in the room.

With her legs completely boneless, the cop let the speedster flip her on her back after their breathing calmed down, but she panicked a bit when Barry started licking up the juices from her thighs all the way to her center.

He smiled wickedly at the little bit of dread in her hoarse voice when she pleaded: “no, Barry, _ please _, I need a minute,” after he briefly sucked on her outer lips.

Goodness, the dark speedster was _ dangerous _ even in bed.

He nibbled his way up her torso towards her mouth, stopping briefly at her chest to gently worry her hardened nipples with his teeth.

But when his face reached hers, Barry didn't kiss Iris hungrily the way she expected after their intense first time.

No, he slowly brushed his knuckles against her cheekbones as he looked at her for a few minutes with the same mixture of lust and adoration he'd given her at his apartment almost two weeks ago, though adoration was much more pronounced this time.

Iris hoped that it was reflected in her eyes because heaven knew that _ she loved this man too _, against her good judgement.

She would never forgive him for Peterson's death, and she still didn't know how a relationship with a criminal would even work for her, but she was done fighting her feelings for him. Those feelings had effectively shot down the walls surrounding Iris' heart, but instead of raiding it without mercy they had infiltrated it without bringing it down, imposing it new rules to abide by and a subtly different rhythm to beat to. 

Loving Barry Allen was a mistake that Iris West might regret later, when she got very old and much wiser, but for now she was simply _ happy _.

So was he. She could tell it from the softness in the kisses he finally dropped on her lips, and the slight shakiness of his gentle hands as he caressed her body, and the audible contentment in the quiet sigh he let out before the two of them drifted back to sleep.

Iris woke up alone a few hours later, but the lingering warmth on Barry's side told her that he hadn't left her side long ago.

The additional rest had helped further attenuate the soreness of the cop's bruises, though she now experienced the subtle and delicious soreness of lovemaking too.

Her hot shower brought back clarity to her mind, washing away the lingering effects of the endorphins that had saturated her brain.

(Should she tell Kendra about her and Barry? Her parents already knew, or at least they highly suspected.)

As she towelled herself dry, Sergeant West reviewed her situation.

Goldface had put a bounty on her head. Her, _ a cop _ . It was a _ negotiable _ bounty at least.

According to Ralph Dibny, that had never happened before to a cop—indeed, all the cops who had been unlucky to face and challenge Kenyon before had been killed on the spot. 

Iris was blow-drying her hair in front of the mirror in the bedroom, her heat protectant and hair serum on the vanity counter (thank goodness for her overnight bag, which she kept fully supplied at her parents' house because neither of them cared much about the products they put on their cropped hair), when Barry returned with a big tray carrying heaps of food, frowning momentarily when he saw the bed empty.

No, _ seriously _, from the mirror Iris could see that there was no room left for anything on that platter. The strawberries in one bowl were threatening to fall on the floor.

"Accelerated metabolism?" the cop asked as she finished gathering her hair into a low bun, parroting the speedster's own words from earlier.

The big grin that split his confused face upon seeing her made her smile in return.

Heavens save her, Barry Allen was _ too cute _ at times.

"I haven't had real food in a while so I couldn't decide on what to try," he explained while he carefully placed the tray on the nightstand before speeding around the room.

When Iris stopped blinking, the tray was relocated in the middle of the bed, which had new bedsheets and cover.

"Also, I don't know yet what you like to have for breakfast," he added with a sheepish smile as he rubbed the back of his neck. "But I brought mint tea!" he added enthusiastically, pointing at a steaming mug.

_ Way too cute. _

Iris ate just enough to fuel her body for a training session—she was eager to go through the simulation Cisco should've completed by now—and Barry polished off the rest of the food, even popping in one of the energy bars he apparently relied on to get sufficient calories in.

(They didn't look appetizing at all, but obviously Dr. Snow hadn't thought about that marketable trait when she'd created them to help her friend survive.)

Barry actually sparred with the SWAT officer for her warmup. Not as The Flash, as himself. He was a decent fighter, though it was clear that he'd first learned kickboxing as a mundane form of exercise, not to use it in combat.

The speedster had to rush out after getting a call from Bellows, of all people, about violent protests at the construction site of the Meta-human Center.

After making Barry promise not to kill anyone—a benefit of being his girlfriend now, she supposed—Iris herself called her father to send her team to diffuse the situation.

The simulation was frustratingly challenging, more so than Iris had anticipated.

Of course it was, she was currently going through it all alone while she was used to doing drills as part of a team, working closely with two to four equally skilled and equipped teammates in a larger group of twelve. Facing powered criminals with less than two people on her side would be suicidal.

But she very well couldn't risk her teammates' lives to go after Goldface and Blacksmith. She was the only one they wanted.

"Damn it!" Sergeant West exclaimed as she almost tore off the virtual reality headset after getting virtually killed by Black's metal shards a third time.

"Easy with my brand new headset, CoD!" Cisco complained from the monitoring console, a bag of stringy candy in his hand. "Why are you doing this alone, by the way?"

"Aren't you supposed to be in an important meeting?" the cop asked back instead of answering his question.

"I _ was _ in an important meeting, and it ended ten minutes ago," the CEO answered her question after chewing on his snack. "Which means that you've been doing this for two hours, Sergeant. You need a break."

"Two hours?" Iris repeated as she looked around the vast, glass-encased empty room, only now aware of her sweat and stiff muscles. "Where's Barry?" she inquired from the breacher.

"In his own meeting with Bellows as of five minutes ago," he answered carefully. "Or a meeting with the entire City Council, not sure. The protest is getting a lot of media coverage so we're a bit worried that legal action will be taken against the construction of the meta center. Took my lawyers months to figure out how to make it look like it was our good mayor's idea to build the place. Elections are coming up soon."

"The Council has members who are vocally anti-meta," Iris pointed out as she exited the virtual ground. "Having The Flash intimidate them isn't going to help the meta-humans' case. You should tell Barry to come back here. I'll ask my mother if she could look into this problem. She's on good terms with the Council members who are _ pro-metas _."

"Your family _ is _ high profile," Cisco commented with lifted eyebrows before starting typing on his phone with one hand. "With your influence in law enforcement and Barry's reach in high places thanks to his name—if he bothered to show his handsome face at social events more often—you two are quite the power couple."

Iris opened her mouth and almost denied the fact that she and Barry were a couple, but in the end she sighed and shrugged.

"Could say the same about you and Cindy," she countered instead. "The new giant of tech and the future empress of cyber security? Both of you are hackers _ and _you're a breacher. There's literally no place you guys can't reach. It would be a scary thought if you guys weren't my friends."

"Oh, about that," Cisco started but got interrupted by Barry zipping back in.

"Sorry, I—somehow I forgot that you were still here," the speedster confessed as he walked to Iris and easily dropped a kiss on her forehead. "I'm too used to you consulting with Cisco then heading out, my bad," he explained quietly as he gently rubbed her back. "Hey, you're all sweaty, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Iris answered outwardly while she internally wondered how any sane woman could've let go of a boyfriend like Barry Allen.

"I'd be disgusted by you two _ soulmates _ if I didn't have my own unbelievably sappy news to share," the businessman announced with his signature snarkiness.

"Oh?" Barry and Iris both reacted, and Cisco rolled his eyes at their synchronicity.

He finished chewing on a candy string before speaking again.

"So, I told Cynthia about my powers…" he started somberly, but a wide smile quickly broke his poker face. "And she told me that _ she's a breacher too _!!!"

"Oh my God, Cisco! That's incredible!" Iris exclaimed happily, rushing to him to squeeze his hands and the two of them jumped up and down like children.

Barry smiled too, but then his face fell.

"Wait," he requested with a deep frown. "The Reynolds are at every social event, and they never stopped showing their faces in public even after the particle accelerator explosion…"

"Josh was a breacher way before the particle accelerator," Cisco informed him with a shake of his head. "And Cynthia inherited his powers. That meta-app signal scrambler we heard about last year? It's a copy of the Reynolds' personal gadget. They've relied on it since twenty thirteen, but now with the power-suppressing drug Cynthia won't have to be too careful about shaking people's hands, and now I wonder if those handcuffs are just a power-dampening bracelet in disguise…"

"That was limit TMI right there, Cisco Ramon," Iris commented with a chuckle.

"You know what's _ definitely _ TMI, Iris West?" the engineer talked back. "The crazy readings from the _ electric sensors _ that cover the guest apartment I gave you. I almost fired the electricians who installed the power grid thinking that they'd done something wrong, they're also working on the meta-human center. I can't believe that I never imagined that a speedster's powers could be used in the bedroom, but now that I think about it…"

"I didn't hear that," came Caitlin's voice from the door that Barry had left open, and Iris' already blushing cheeks simply flamed up.

"What I did hear is that you were hurt during a mission yesterday, Iris?" Dr. Snow asked hesitantly, blushing after she spared Barry a quick reproachful glare and omg, Iris wanted to die of embarrassment! 

"I'm fine, _ totally fine!_" she assured the doctor while waving the virtual reality headset in her hand. "I was cleared for missions actually, and I was able to go through a few mission simulations, you see?"

"On your own?" Barry asked with a frown before he pulled out his burner phone. "It's Ralph," he informed the group before picking up the call and putting Ralph on speaker.

"Hey Ralph what's up?" he asked the P.I.

"Hey man, I was thinking that now would be the ideal time to ask you a few dating tips as a meta-human," was Dibny's casual reply. "Though you and West aren't yet there, are you? Seriously, dude, if you can land Iris West, I—"

"You're on speaker, Dibny!" Iris quickly informed the caller while hiding her face against Barry's upper arm.

"Oh hey, Sergeant West, I got good news for you," Ralph smoothly transitioned, not sounding one bit embarrassed about getting caught talking about her and Barry's relationship!

"Sweigeld and Li have a bi-monthly reservation at Frankie's," the P.I. informed the group. "And they'll be there tonight for dinner. I don't know why I'm surprised that Silvertongue is able to romance his longtime girlfriend in such a public place without risking an arrest. Most people in our beautiful city don't even know about him, they can't report his presence to the police."

"That's good for us," Iris commented. "Though I don't think that I can secure a reservation at Frankie's on such a short notice," she added before lightly tapping her knuckles on Barry's suited arm. "Can you?"

"Oh, don't worry about that," Dibny chimed in, "I already had a reservation and they accommodated my change to four diners instead of two. Looking forward to this double date! I'm not sure if you guys remember the homecoming game against North Central Academy? That's when I first met Sue. So it's not quite a school reunion but close enough."

"You've been holding a torch for that woman for ten years too?" Cisco asked incredulously.

"What? No, her parents paid me to investigate her two years ago," Dibny answered. "We barely exchanged words as chief editors of our respective school newspapers, and I sincerely didn't even remember her name. So what do you say, West-Allen? See you at six at Frankie's?"

Iris frowned. Did the guy just hyphenate hers and Barry's last names to address them both as one entity?

"Use the power-suppressing drug, Barry," the P.I. advised. "They do screen for metas at the entrance, and the owner is too well-connected to get reported for it. Oh, and text me a summary of that meta-center story, I'm curious. The media always demonizes you more than is necessary, so I don't trust what I saw and heard on tv. I know even without asking that you didn't start the hostilities. Anyways, gotta go, tailing this guy who's very likely cheating on his husband with a woman. That's a first. Dibny out!"

Iris made a note to herself to thank Barry's friend for the favor. At least she and Barry would be able to talk to Silvertongue in a neutral, public area.

"This is why we can't allow the guy into our team," Cisco claimed. "He's all over the place. Very good naming skills, though. I like 'West-Allen'. Better than 'Barris' which is what I came up with."

"You shouldn't name couples in the first place," Caitlin chided her best friend.

"I'm still mad at Hartley for naming you two 'C-square'," Ronnie admitted as he walked through the door with a tablet in hand. "Though I personally like our couple name, Cait. It _ rolls on the tongue _ quite nicely."*

"I can't believe I married such a dork," Dr. Snow mumbled with a shake of her head. 

"Hey Cisco, did you see those weird spikes of electric current in the guesthouse earlier this morning?" the structural engineer asked his boss and friend with a serious frown at whatever he was reading on the screen of his tablet. "There were two isolated incidents within a thirty-minute interval. The second one was subtle, but the first one could have caused major problems. Good thing that no one lives there at the moment. I can check it out in person this afternoon after running a few diagnoses."

Cisco grinned like a maniac, and Iris groaned in mortification, slapping Barry's chest when she heard him clear his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated! 
> 
> *what's the actual ship name of Caitlin and Ronnie? It's crazy how little love that couple gets, they were married! I feel almost guilty for shipping KillerVibe. ALMOST. In this fic, Cisco came up with the very silly ship name 'Rolin'. I know, I know, very uninspired.
> 
> So, back to the action next chapter, and some time travel shenanigans too.


	27. When The Hour is Nigh

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two pairs of soulmates conspire the fall of a third one; time traveling Barry talks with his future self.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are back in business! Thank you all for your patience! 
> 
> There's a small change from the fast-forward in Chapter 25: after 2009, Barry landed in a few other years from the past before he landed in the future. He says which ones in this chapter.
> 
> *if you remember the 2016 sections of chapters 16 and 2 (that's the chronological order of the event), Barry and Iris went undercover in Silvertongue's club to take pictures of his ledger.  
**Walkie talkie.
> 
> Amy= Amunet Black. Such a cute nickname for that psycho.
> 
> Oh, here's Iris' cocktail dress: https://www.lulus.com/products/reach-out-my-hand-white-lace-skater-dress/580682.html
> 
> Chapter title from "Bleeding Out" by Imagine Dragons. Notice the chapter count!

**2016**

“Sorry about the arm,” Barry felt the need to say to smooth out the tense atmosphere in the private drinking room at Frankie’s.

He and Iris were still standing by the door, facing Silvertongue and Pamela Sweigeld who were comfortably seated on plush leather chairs.

A waiter at the dining area had notified them that they were 'invited to join Mr. Li for a glass of wine' halfway through their main course at the fancy restaurant. Ralph and his date Susan Dearbon had reassured them that they would wait for them to return.

“I’m the one who should apologize for electrocuting you,” Silvertongue replied with an ever so slight shift of the arm in question, supported by a sling. “Not only are you the savior of Central City, but you’re an esteemed member of this city's community, Mr. Allen. Killing you would’ve been my worst crime.”

Barry felt Iris frown at that comment, and even Sweigeld sighed at her partner’s lame joke.

"And of course, you are both forgiven for infiltrating my club and _ drugging me*_," the criminal businessman announced with a magnanimous smile. "Found everything you needed from the ledger?"

"Actually no," Iris answered without missing a beat, earning a silent but impressed expression from the psychic.

"Your ledger didn't document the funding of the cop killer gun even though it was commissioned by Goldface himself," Sergeant West stated. 

Unlike Silvertongue who was seated all prim and proper in his seat, the psychic and former burglar known under the codename ‘Mouse’ was seated cross-legged in her leather chair. She had conventional earphones around her neck, though only one earbud in. Her hands were playing around with what looked like a mini version of those old handheld transceivers**

(Barry assumed that she was monitoring whatever illegal transactions were happening that night.)

As soon as Iris delivered the news about the cop killer gun, Sweigeld switched off the receiver and removed the earbud.

“I told you,” she hissed to her partner, who looked mildly shocked but not as panicked as her.

“You did, my love,” Silvertongue confirmed with a short sigh before he addressed Iris. “Do you know why? Keith is a hands on kind of guy, why would he need something so over the top? Not to actually kill cops, I’m sure.”

“I was the target,” Barry answered the question just as Iris waved a hand in his direction.

Sweigeld and Li raised their eyebrows in tandem. Barry would've been impressed by the twin reactions if he wasn't used to that kind of thing from Cisco and Caitlin.

“Can’t you simply run away from a blast very fast?” the mobster asked.

“I don’t ‘run away’ from _ anything _,” the speedster objected firmly.

“You ran away on the night of the ball,” the psychic countered just as her cell phone chimed and she swiftly unlocked it and read whatever message she’d received.

“Which was a wise move, Flash,” Silvertongue defended before Barry could get angry at the insinuation that he was a _ coward. _ “Before passing out, I saw on the screen of my silent meta-alert app that there were _five_ active metas in the building, including you. Keith and Amy had definitely set a trap for you, and neither of us knew about it.”

“Five metas," Iris repeated as she exchanged a look with Barry. "That’s you, Sweigeld, Goldface, Blacksmith and that one meta-human whose powers can supposedly defeat a speedster,” she then looked at the criminal couple. “Do you know who that meta-human is?”

“Why are you including _me_ in that count?” Sweigeld asked before reporting to her boyfriend at a lower volume, “all three C4 shipments have left the city’s borders.”

“Where are you sending such a huge amount of drugs?” Sergeant West questioned sharply, her statement making Barry frown in confusion.

Wasn’t C4 an explosive device?

“I’m impressed that you’re knowledgeable in the drug cartel jargon,” Silvertongue smoothly complimented the cop with a nod and a slight raise of his wine glass. “You’re a well-rounded cop, it seems, Sergeant West. Undercover work, hand to hand combat, now this? I rushed to look you up as soon as Amy uploaded your picture and name on the gold mark forum, but couldn’t find much other than your current address and the fact that you’re the daughter of the esteemed D.A. Francine West and Captain Joseph West.”.

That was Cisco’s doing, or maybe Cynthia’s since she was the expert in cyber security. Also, Barry had no idea that C4 meant cocaine in criminal jargon. Why was that?

He turned to Iris to quickly ask her, raising his eyebrows and mouthing C4 when he got her attention away from Silvertongue.

“It’s actually one of your fellow biochemists who nicknamed the drug,” Iris answered at normal volume. “First letter and last digit of cocaine’s chemical formula or something? I don’t know the details.”

Ah, yes, _ benzoylmethylecgonine’s _ chemical formula was indeed **C**17H21N0**4**.

“But we’re not here to talk about our business transactions, are we, Sergeant Iris West?” Li pointed out. “And indeed, Pam couldn’t have been one of the five active metas in the building at that time.”

Barry and Iris both frowned at Sweigeld, who pulled down the collar of her turtleneck dress, revealing a golden choker with a tiny lock and a blinking green light.

She was wearing a power-dampening _ collar_, rather than a bracelet.

“Like everyone else in our circle, I’m only allowed to use my powers when it’s convenient for our king or queen,” the psychic informed him. “By the time you two got caught I already had my collar back on since the soulmates test had been over for at least an hour.”

Barry stared at the psychic’s neck even after she rearranged her turtleneck.

Really, he shouldn’t feel any sympathy for a criminal who dealt with drugs. But fucking hell, he’d rather _die_ than have anyone but Iris control his powers.

“Scudder told us about it,” Iris recalled without an ounce of sympathy in her tone. “You guys had to know what would happen when your boss started dealing with the metahuman-fighting unit of the army.”

“I should’ve seen it coming, yes,” Sweigeld admitted bitterly. “If I’d used my powers to violate _ my own friends’ _ privacy, I would’ve known that they were ready to betray us.”

“I suppose that simply taking it off isn’t an option,” Barry said as he refused to think about Cisco's betrayal, which still hurt since he’d just learned about it yesterday.

“The bracelets and collars made by _ our own manufacturers _ have an auto-destruction command activated by any sign of tampering," Silvertongue informed him. "Even if we managed to get the collar off before it explodes, Keith would know that it's removed, and Amy would follow with her threat of killing our closest employees on top of putting an non-negotiable goldmark on us."

"And you call them your_ friends_," Iris drawled, earning a hard glare from Sweigeld.

"I can get you and those employees you care about out of the city in seconds," Barry bargained, ignoring the disapproving look Iris directed at him. "In exchange, you tell me who the meta-human who can defeat me is, and where I can find him."

“That could be Farooq Gibran,” the psychic suggested as she unfolded her legs and sat conventionally.

“Ah, yes, Blackout, _ of course_,” Silvertongue agreed with a nod. “Twenty-three years old, he’s in the tech support team. I believe that he dropped out of college after he got his power of electrokinesis. Farooq's powers require him to absorb electric current almost constantly, to the point that he's caused blackouts across entire blocks before. Keith first introduced the power-dampening bracelets to control employees with such uncontrollable powers, or so he claimed. _We_ believe that after rigorous training, any meta can control their powers without the need of those gadgets. Power-dampeners should only be used in case of emergencies. It's wrong to rob someone of their powers, of their nature. It's part of their DNA!”

Barry remembered how Sam Scudder had claimed that Silvertongue was supportive of metas. The thief hadn't lied. In fact, Mirror-Master had been _too talkative_, hadn't he?

"Scudder..." Barry started just as Iris asked "did you kill Scudder because you were worried he'd rat you out to Goldface?" and Silvertongue and Sweigeld simultaneously raised their right eyebrows this time.

“You know, _this_ is what attracted us to Keith and Amunet,” Silvertongue recounted as he pointed at the two of them with his wine glace before taking a sip. “Not just the assurance of being rich beyond our hope, but working with two people who were just as in tune with each other as Pam and I are. _ Soulmates _ like us who were on the same page without needed to talk too much, and whose love for each other was as strong as their love for this city.”

“How _ dare you _ claim to love Central City when you _ poison _ it with your criminal activity?” Iris said, remaining close to the wall only because Barry had blocked her way with his extended arm.

“What you, a highly skilled police officer with a steady paycheck, call ‘criminal activity’, others call ‘source of revenue’,” Silvertongue argued calmly as he observed the wine he was swishing around in his glass. “Do you know what the unemployment rate in district three is, Sergeant?” He then asked when he met Iris’ glare.

“I don’t, but I assume that it’s high,” the cop answered as she deflated a bit.

“On the contrary, it’s _ inexistent_,” Sweigeld corrected her. “Everyone with a bank account there gets to pay their bills on time and to even enjoy some luxuries because we gave them _ all _ a job. Why do you think that Goldface and Blacksmith were first coined the nicknames of king and queen of crime? Because they mostly fulfilled their promise to take care of the people who help them build their empire.”

“_Mostly_ seems to be a keyword, here,” Barry noted out loud with a glance at her covered neck.

“If you help me take down Goldface in return, I’ll phase that collar off of your neck,” the speedster renewed his proposition. “And those of your employees. I'll get you out of the city, and you'll be able to start your life far away from Kenyon and Black.”

"Yes, get out of our city," Iris bit out. "Go back to Gotham or something."

“This is _ our city _ too,” Silvertongue argued, “we weren’t born here, but—”

“Our old life as petty criminals died on October thirteenth, two thousand and twelve,” Sweigeld smoothly completed his sentence. “We were _ reborn _ in Central City. I’m the only one with a mutated DNA, but Bren also changed. _ He had to, _ in order to take care of me when my powers were driving me crazy.”

“We crawled our way to the top of the criminal food chain,” Li resumed seamlessly, “and now that we’re basically on top, we’re _ not _ leaving. We deserve to be here. We belong here, _ same as you, Flash_.”

Barry couldn’t argue against that statement, he _ didn’t want to _ argue against it, at least not with Sweigeld who was a meta like him.

“You just quoted words from his call to protect Central City from the aliens last year,” Iris stated quietly as she looked back and forth between Li and Sweigeld. “Didn’t you?”

Oh. Barry hadn't known that Iris had heard it too. She’d never mentioned it.

“We heard it live,” Silvertongue confirmed evenly as he locked eyes with the speedster. “I’m not a meta, so I know that the message wasn’t meant to inspire me, but it _ did _ strengthen my resolve to get rid of Keith. A few years ago, the four of us: Keith, Amy, Pam and I became like_ family_. Then they betrayed _ us _ by violating Pam’s right to use her powers on her own terms. After all these years of us doing the dirty work for them, of pulling more than our weight in our joint venture, _ that’s _ how they thank us? Yes, Keith can turn anything into gold, for a _ limited period of time, _ that is, but Pam and I are the ones who make him and Amunet _ real money _…”

“The money with which Goldface funded the invention of the cop killer,” Iris reminded him. “Clearly he already knows that you're plotting against him, or at least he highly suspects that you’re thinking of betraying him in return. Killing Scudder might have earned you some time, but eventually he'll figured out that you're the one who tried to frame him for Snart's death.”

That got Silvertongue quiet. He put down his wine glass and reached his hand out to Sweigeld, who reached back.

Barry felt for them, he couldn't help it. According to the files Iris had obtained from the Gotham records, those two had both had a rough childhood: parents killed in gang wars, themselves involved in shady business at a young age, getting in and out of juvies while bouncing from one foster family to the next...Until they met in high school. They didn't get into any trouble until they graduated, but something must have happened afterwards because they got involved with gangs again then started their career as thieves.

After serving their sentence in Gotham, they'd somehow ended up in Central City, possibly because Brendan Li had been seeking to reunite with his biological brother Marcus, who'd been very young when their parents passed away and had been adopted into a different family.

And now there were Brendan Li and Pamela Sweigeld: rich, powerful, with no visible trace of poverty and fear on them. Just a hint of anger and determination in their eyes.

"What if we changed our ways?" Silvertongue proposed, and Iris snorted loudly.

Barry couldn't blame her skepticism, even though it was a bit hypocritical of her to be so strict towards those two dangerous criminals when she had _another_ dangerous criminal as her lover.

"We never meant to deal drugs and weapons," Silvertongue claimed vehemently. "Contraband and theft, _that's_ our specialty. Even Keith isn't that keen on all the violence. It's Amy...Amunet is the one who lives without a moral code."

"We're the ones who supervise the entire network," Sweigeld reminded them. "With a few exceptions, the employees trust us more than they trust the king and the queen, but they're too scared of them to disobey them even if we asked. But if they knew that we had _The Flash_ on our side—"

"You could be the new king," her partner kept going firmly, though he directed a wary glance towards Iris. "As long as you don't make _her_ the queen."

"Even if I were interested in becoming the new king, which_ I'm not,_" Barry asserted with a shake of his head, "Iris and I are a team, same as you two. So don't exclude her from whatever plan—"

"Soulmates," Sweigeld cut him off to correct his terminology. "You two are _soulmates_, and I wouldn't compare you to us or any other well-matched couple. I've never encountered any pair like you, Iris West and Barry Allen. You're incredibly complementary. Once you allow yourself to be together, _truly together_, I don't think that any force in this universe will be able to separate you."

Barry felt Iris react at the same time as he did, and he felt himself blush when the psychic's scrutinizing gaze took them in.

"Oh, seems like you've _consummated_ your love, after all," Silvertongue commented with a grin before grabbing his glass and lifting it up. "Mazeltov."

"What were you saying about turning over a new leaf?" Iris brought them back on track without acknowledging the congratulations. "You were insinuating that your people would side with you if you had The Flash's support. But Goldface and Blacksmith have Farooq Gibran and another trump card against him, so you can't promise your men anything. And I still don't believe that you can actually change your ways."

"Pam," Silvertongue called calmly, and Sweigeld pulled out her phone and typed rapidly for a few minutes.

"Done," she announced as she pocketed her phone. "In an hour, the FBI and border patrol will receive an anonymous tip about the three shipments of C4 that we just smuggled out of the city."

Iris' gaped at the couple of criminal, Barry himself felt his eyebrows rise in shock.

That sounded like _a lot of money _going down the drain. They weren't bluffing about wanting to turn a new leaf.

"We have until a someone in our management team rats us out to Keith and Amy to find who that unknown fifth meta is," Silvertongue announced as he stood up from his seat and pulled out a collapsible tablet from his suit pocket. "Before then, feel free to find Farooq's profile on here. The employees' files are encrypted, but I imagine that you can find a good hacker in record time. If you don't hear from us through this device by tomorrow morning at nine, assume that we're dead. We need to leave now."

"Alright," Barry confirmed as he took the device, but he grabbed Silvertongue's wrist before the man could walk towards Sweigeld who'd stood up from her seat too.

"Yes?" Goldface's right hand asked serenely after looking down at their linked hands.

"Double-cross us and I won't just break your other arm," the speedster promised before jerking his chin towards the psychic. "I'll take _her_ and you'll _never_ see her again."

Outrage and fear burned in the Silvertongue's eyes, but he kept his cool and nodded silently, then he and his soulmate left the room.

"Was that kind of threat really necessary?" Iris asked him after a tense moment of silence.

"Threatening to arrest them wouldn't have yielded the same result," he assured her before using flash time to get a first look at the tablet.

"The encryption is too advanced for me, we'll need Cisco," he announced before checking the time. "He's still in a meeting with some partner in Asia."

And the room they were in themselves had been rented for an hour. They still had half of that time to kill.

Now that the tense meeting with Silvertongue and Sweigeld was over, Barry could focus back on what had distracted him for the better part of the evening: Iris dressed all in _white._

That knee length cocktail dress was very modest, her chest and back totally covered, but after Iris' casual talk about raising meta-human children last night, Barry couldn't help but imagine her in a similar dress but with more lace and a much longer skirt, no veil because hiding Iris' beauty was a sin that her SWAT headgear committed frequently enough...

Damn it, he loved her _so much_, it scared him a little bit now that she'd accepted to keep him by her side. He hoped that she knew that she'd have to kill him herself to get rid of him now.

"What is it?" Iris asked with an adorable frown, concern coloring her voice as she stepped closer. "Is it about Farooq Gibran and that mysterious meta-human? You know, after going through the simulation, I was wondering if getting my team involved...Barry!"

He didn't _manhandle_ her, okay? He pushed her _very slowly and very gently_ against the wall before kissing her. She didn't push him away, nor did she slap his shoulder the way she had when he'd first laid his eyes on her in that white dress a few hours ago. And she did return his kiss for a while.

"Hands off, speedster," she however reprimanded him when he tried to slip his hand under the hem of her dress. She ducked under his arms to reach the door.

"Iris, _come on!_" Barry whined in a stage whisper, but his frustration turned into trepidation when Iris fixed him with a heated look that told him that she wasn't actually opposed to making out.

"I'm not running the risk of causing an electric malfunction in a_ public space_, speedster," she declared seriously as she opened the door. "Let's check in with Dibny and Dearbon then we can go to yours."

"Anything you want, _Sergeant_," he agreed, and he couldn't control his wide grin when she rolled her eyes at the way he said her title.

**20xx?**

_ Damn it, _Barry thought miserably.

He stood frozen in front of his _future self_, waiting to be erased from existence.

Wasn't the number one rule of time travel not being seen by yourself? Because that either created a diverging timeline in which you never met yourself or created an entropic cascade failure, in which reality rejected the existence of the time traveler…

"Time travel is tricky," future Barry told him calmly as he leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms over his naked chest. "But the Speed Force allows us to break a few rules."

Speed Force. The Flash had heard that term before. He couldn't quite remember when in his state of panic.

"You'll learn about it eventually, don't worry about it now," Barry's future self reassured him with a shrug.

(_How far_ in the future? The time traveler couldn't tell. If the children were his and Iris—holy shit, they_ were,_ weren't they? He was going to be a _father!_—it was at least three years from where he was from...)

Wait.

"You _ remember _ this day?" Barry belatedly processed his future version's words. "Does that mean that we're stuck in a time loop? Who's the younger Barry Allen that _ I _ will meet when I'm in your shoes?"

"The Novikov self-consistency principle applies in the context of a unique timeline in a self-contained universe," the older speedster reminded him. "You know that the multiverse theory is valid from meeting the man in yellow." 

"But…"

"You're not a_ theoretical physicist_," future Barry pointed out with an amused look. "Why do you care that your powers can break the second law of thermodynamics?"

"I need to understand _how_ they do it so I can focus them better and get where and when I need to be to _save Iris!_" the younger speedster argued passionately.

His future self wasn't very moved, though he did spare him a sympathetic look after glancing at his Iris.

"Why can't I land at the right time?" Barry asked him. "I only meant to travel a few minutes backward, yet I've been going all over the place, backwards and forward in some random pattern."

"What do _ you _ think is the reason?" Future Barry asked back with raised eyebrows.

Barry focused on the past, what, ten minutes? Thinking about it blew his mind. _Time fucking traveling._ But yeah, he had actually figured out a pattern when he'd noticed the time of the year.

"I have many strong memories related to the date October thirteenth," the younger speedster reasoned out loud. "The Harvest celebration dinner at Cisco's abuela's in two thousand eight; breaking down from thinking about my mom calling me bear the year after; the particle accelerator explosion in twenty eleven; and in twenty fourteen, realizing that the cop pointing the stun gun at me was Iris…So, I think that my brain is a bit confused about _which_ October thirteenth I mean to go back to, especially since, before today, my idea of time traveling entailed skipping _ entire years_, not just a few minutes."

He struggled to keep calm as he pleaded his future self with his eyes.

"Please, help me go to the right time and save Iris. I _ can't _ lose her."

His future self stared back impassively for long seconds before he nodded.

"You _ won't _ lose her," he replied before pointing his chin at the sleeping future Iris. "You made it, you _ saved her_. As far as she and the rest of the world are concerned, you were never at risk of losing her in the first place."

Right. Only Barry would know about the change in the timeline.

And, it was a good thing that he'd apparently never told Iris about needing to travel in time to save her. She'd once seen herself die, and even though it had actually been Hannibal Bates, Barry knew that she'd been shaken by the sight. She didn't need to worry about the erased event of her real death.

"Focus on the events that led to the moment you're trying to change, and the people involved,_ not_ on the specific date," future Barry instructed him. "And this is really all I remember from this encounter so I'll leave you to it," he added with a small encouraging smile before unfolding his arms and exiting flash time.

As he geared up for another time jump—well, it was more of a time _sprint_ in his case—Barry looked at future Iris and stared at her rings.

He was going to _ marry Iris West _ and _have children_ with her. They didn't live in his childhood home in Central City like he'd once daydreamed, but that was perfectly fine.

"Let's make this future happen," he cheered himself up before speeding back to twenty sixteen.

* * *

_ After dropping a discreet kiss on Iris' hair but before heading to the twins' room—Dawn and Don slept so much more heavily at Wally and Jesse's place, hopefully that habit would carry over when they returned home in Central City—Barry realized something that he hadn't when he'd been in his younger self's shoes, all these years ago when he'd risked time traveling to save the love of his life. _

_ His lightning had been _ yellow _ the whole time. It hadn't stood out to him back then because his future self had also used the Positive Speed Force in flash time. _

_ Of course, nowadays Barry could still tap into the Negative Speed Force, he wasn't the hero Iris made Central City believe he had turned into...But since the news of Iris' pregnancy four years ago, the Scarlet Speedster—because now his suit was _ red_—had stuck to his original lightning color. One day he'd teach his kids how to control their powers, and he didn't want them asking why his lightning was red unlike theirs. When they grew up, he'd tell them about his darker years before he reunited with their mother, but that would be much further in the future... _

_ "Wait," Barry exhaled as he turned around and stared at the spot where his younger self had stood. _

_ He did remember that day, but not just the despair from thinking that Iris had married someone else and that it possibly meant that he'd been dead for years. _

_ He remembered accidentally landing in those other years of the past, and _each time _he'd told his younger self to hang onto his feelings for Iris... _

_ But his younger self hadn't heard him then, since everything had happened in flash time. Right?_

_ "Right, I don't remember those interactions at all," he reflected under his breath. "The only piece of the timeline that I changed was the one in twenty-sixteen." _

_ His certainty was challenged by something in his gut, an idea that he felt he could reach out if he only focused harder, but then Iris stirred in bed and sat up abruptly, worried about the twins barging in the room while she was naked. So Barry ignored that gut feeling and went back to his wife, picking up his shirt from the floor to help cover herself because indeed he could hear the kids talking at the other end of the hallway. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Iris' temporary death next chapter!
> 
> Does anyone remember Farooq Gibran, by the way? Code name Blackout, from season 1? The mysterious fifth meta is also a meta from another season.
> 
> Did you catch this entire story's underlining plot twist? If not, that's okay, Barry didn't either in the end.


	28. You Tell Me To Hold On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Iris had backup this time, but it still ended up like in the simulation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As Leonard Snart said: "make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails...throw away the plan."
> 
> Warning for a major character's death, but you know that it's temporary!

"I could help you guys remotely!" Garcia offered, his voice hopeful after he handed a newly calibrated tracking monitor to Iris.

"Like hell you could," Lawton objected bluntly. "Eat your Jell-o and rest, Garcia. We'll come back tomorrow to debrief you on the mission. We shouldn't have disturbed you so early in the morning," he added with a reprimanding look at Iris.

She ignored him as she pocketed the tracking monitor in the pocket opposite of the one containing the trackers.

"Come on, you'll need a tech!" Rick insisted.

"We'll have..." Iris started but paused before she could say Cisco's first name. "Mr. Ramon offered his assistance. For free," she specified when the team's alpha winced, probably worried about budget paperwork.

"That's very generous of him," Lawton commented, his surprise clear. "I wasn't too happy about your consultation gig with him, but it really paid off, West. Well done."

"Thanks," Iris replied, blinking at his praise. "I just had to assure him that Ramon Industries would be mentioned at the press conference after the—" she started explaining when The Flash walked in through a wall of the hospital room.

Iris wasn't too proud to say that, just like her team leader and Rick, she made the aborted movement of grabbing a gun, but of course the patient wasn't armed and Iris and Lawton had been asked to leave their weapons outside by the hospital personnel.

Despite the blur on his face, anyone could tell that the dark speedster was amused by the cops' reactions to his unannounced arrival.

"Oh, hi Flash," Garcia tried to lighten up the mood with his casual greeting, waving with his good arm.

"Sergeant Garcia," the deep vibrating voice greeted back as the speedster turned his head towards the severely injured cop.

"That looks much more painful than the bullet wound I'd planned on giving you last year," Flash noted as he waved an encompassing hand at Garcia's battered body. 

The joke preceded an awkward silence, and it was Lawton who recovered from it first.

"What are you doing here, speedster?" he bit out coldly. "We don't have any quarrel with you."

"Relax, Deadshot, I come bearing gifts," The Flash reassured the MFU-SWAT team's alpha as he threw a small bag at him.

"Don't call me that," Lawton objected to the nickname even as he caught the bag.

Iris' team leader used to be a bad shot back in his days at the academy, and that's how he'd gotten the nickname. Iris couldn't imagine the guy missing a target in his sleep now. No one on the team had dared call him by that nickname since he became the team alpha, that's for sure. 

Barry handed the same object that Lawton pulled out from the bag directly to Iris. It was an odd metallic disc she'd seen before, and from memory Iris brought it closer to her tactical vest and it attached itself to the button of one of her pockets. Elementary magnetism or whatever Cisco had said.

"Give the rest to your team," The Flash instructed to Lawton. "It's a polarized current syphon. If you're struck with an electric shock that's above the safety threshold for human brain cells, it will immediately suck it up. The blast will still hurt, but you won't be seriously injured and you might even stay conscious."

"The Flash is the _informant_ you were talking about earlier, Sergeant?" Lawton questioned Iris with a reproachful glare before she could marvel at the speed with which Cisco and Barry had modified and replicated the gadget he'd made a while back when Barry didn't have full control of his powers. "You're supposed to _arrest_ him, not make friends with him!"

Garcia cleared his throat, and Iris fixed him with a warning glare, to which he responded with an apologetic raise of his good hand.

"And how is she supposed to arrest me?" The dark speedster asked as he crossed his arms over his chest while facing Alpha, not quite intimidating but not trying to look harmless either.

"Maybe by asking nicely," Lawton replied defiantly. "Did you make those yourself to protect West from that electricity-controlling meta-human? She's the one who asked you to make more for the rest of us too, right?"

Iris was the one tensing up this time, she had asked Cisco to make as many as he could in under eight hours.

"Nah, I stole those from Ramon Industries," The Flash lied with a shrug of his shoulders. "Electricity is also one of _my_ powers, remember? That's how your CSIs can tell that I've robbed a place, because traces of my lightning is all I ever leave behind my crime scenes. So I knew that Ramon would have something like these gadgets. I tested them all, they work like a charm."

"Are you planning on collecting them back once this mission is over, then? Because they're going to be real handy when we start hunting _you_ down, after we're done taking down Goldface and Blacksmith." Lawton stated boldly.

Iris sighed in defeat even before the disturbing sound of the dark speedster's _chuckle_ resonated in the room.

"Are you forgetting why I'm called a _speedster_, and not electric man or something?" He asked before moving faster than Iris could see. Instead she _heard_ Lawton being shoved against a wall behind her.

"Like I implied a minute ago, arresting me is _impossible_," The Flash asserted dangerously. "Goldface has nothing on me, Lieutenant. I'm only coming with you cops to make sure that Sergeant West gets out of this raid of yours unharmed, not to get the toys back."

"You're coming along?" Iris asked sharply as she turned around to stare at Barry.

That was _not_ the plan they had agreed on.

(After fooling around at his apartment last evening, Barry and Iris had reported back to Team Flash, and when they'd mentioned Blackout's powers Cisco had informed them that he could revamp a preexisting gadget to protect non-speedsters from pure electricity blasts.

Iris had then proposed to make arresting Farooq Gibran an MFU mission, that way Barry wouldn't have to endanger himself by facing Blackout. At first Barry had objected to the idea, but the rest of the team had sided with Iris. She'd argued that interrogating Gibran _legally_ was sure to provide the police good intel on Goldface since the guy was tech support. Getting the police on Kenyon's back—and the FBI, as Sweigeld had predicted—would make him more likely to make mistakes and would make him lose the edge he had from that mysterious fifth meta-human he and Amunet Black kept as a trump card.)

"I am," The Flash answered as he stepped away from Lawton, and Iris could detect the challenging tone in his voice, daring her to object to his decision. "You have a goldmark on you, in case you'd forgotten, Sergeant West. You're a public target for all the criminals of this city. I'm sure that a few thugs are heading this way even as we speak. So you guys should get going."

"Let them come," Alpha declared as he straightened up to his full height. "We're MFU-SWAT, we don't cower from petty criminals. Captain West worries too much about Iris West _his daughter,_ forgetting that Iris West_ the cop_ is one of CCPD's best assets. Of course Goldface would want to get rid of her, he knows how good she is. But they'll have to pass through the rest of us first. This is a good chance to root out the _vermin_ that's crawling all over our city."

Iris refrained from gaping at her team leader. Yes, she knew that he knew her worth, but he didn't express his appreciation for her good work that often. This was his _third time_ complimenting her today.

The first time had been at the station an hour ago, in front of Iris' dad and Detective Singh, who had used a video call to contact Detective Dinah Drake and the other members of the city-wide investigation unit working on Silvertongue and Goldface. Iris had finally shared her pictures of Silvertongue's ledger, and though they were not court-admissible they had been useful to the investigation unit. 

Despite the early hour, within fifteen minutes the members of the investigation unit had figured out target locations that SWAT could raid based on the intel from the ledger confirming the validity of _court-admissible leads._ Of course, most of the ideas had come from Dinah, who'd had unofficial access to the ledger for a while. Iris wasn't surprised to see that Detective Drake had singled out a facility in district three that was likely to be involved with tech contraband. It was a bit of a reach, but it wouldn't be surprising to find Gibran there.

And when Captain West had tried to cancel the mission saying that CCPD wasn't equipped to deal with electrokinesis, Iris had promised that she had an informant who could procure them the necessary equipment.

Of course, Barry was _not_ happy about the mission involving so many people all of a sudden, but Iris was _a cop_, and she had to act like one.

She felt especially compelled to get out there with her team because one: the simulation had warned her that facing Goldface and Blacksmith on her own was suicidal. She couldn't count on Barry or his team to protect her at all times, they'd be busy dealing with all the meta-humans and regular criminals on Goldface's side; and two: she didn't want her relationship with Barry to turn her into someone who was comfortable breaking the law all the time. Dating a cop killer made her feel bad enough.

Barry and Iris still hadn't heard back from Li and Sweigeld, but it was still seven thirty in the morning and Iris was optimistic. Their stunt with the C4 shipments had convinced her that they could be trusted, and she had more interests than Barry to have those two help the police take down their own leaders: their assistance would make the mission that much smoother and minimize collateral damages on the police's side.

"Of course _I_ had to be bed-ridden on this historical day," Garcia whined as he hit the back of his head against his cushiony pillow. "Just my luck!"

"We won't get Goldface today," Lawton pointed out reasonably. "He'll learn that we're onto him as soon as we raid the facility, and he and his crazy wife won't wait passively for us to arrest him. This is only the first battle of the war, Garcia. Listen to your nurses and you might very well be part of the final face off in a few weeks."

"Don't give him false hopes," The Flash chided with a snort. "_You_ cops are slowed down by your rules and protocols, but _I'm_ not. Goldface is going down _this week. _See you at the facility."

He then sped away, and even Iris sighed in relief at his departure.

(She was well aware that, just like her dad, her boyfriend was upset that she was part of the mission despite her goldmark. Lawton had not too subtly threatened to report Captain West to internal affairs if he ordered Iris to stay behind, since she was clearly fit to join her team for the raid and there technically was no safer place for her to be but among her shield mates. Cisco and Caitlin had warned Barry that they'd help Iris escape if Barry tried to locked her up.)

"_Fucking hell,_" Lawton cursed before cracking his neck, rolling his shoulders and shaking his limbs. "It's bad enough to face that guy _with_ weapons, but without them? I haven't felt that vulnerable since being a rookie caught in the middle of a gang shoot out."

"I think that I'm getting used to him," Garcia claimed with a grin. "As he pointed out, he's already threatened me once, so I think I'm safe now."

_I wouldn't bet on that,_ Iris thought ruefully. _You're the only person not already in on the secret who might figure out that Barry Allen is The Flash._

"Well, stay safe, kid," Lawton instructed as he walked towards the door. "Let's go, West."

"Good luck guys!" Garcia wished them with an enthusiastic wave. "Hey, psst, Iris!" He called out quietly before Iris could close the door behind her.

"Hmm?" She asked, bending backward to look at him.

"Are you two, like, _fighting_ or something?" Her favorite teammate asked in a whisper. "Flash sounded pissed as hell."

Iris suppressed a groan. She'd hoped that Rick would do her the courtesy of pretending that he didn't know that she was involved with the dark speedster.

"Of all the times you've interacted with him, has he ever appeared calm and composed?" She managed to ask a question of her own instead of giving him the obvious answer.

"Oh," the team tech expert reacted, getting suddenly pensive. "Right, he's always mad _at you_ or _about you_...He's not abusive or anything, right?" 

"_No!_ What the hell, Rick!" She replied almost too loudly, then she made sure to signal to Lawton that she was following right behind.

The team alpha rolled out his eyes but went ahead without her, so Iris went back into the room.

"Can you refrain from breathing words about my _secret_ relationship with The Flash?" She bit out angrily.

"Hey, I'm just watching out for you," Garcia argued. "Since I know about it now, I might as well be your confident, right? Or do your friends know too?"

"They don't," Iris answered.

She hadn't told Kendra yet, and Dinah was more of a work friend like Rick than a _friend_ friend like Kendra or Linda and Stacy. The last two had no idea of course, though Iris would definitely tell them about her dating _Barry Allen_ at some point.

"Right, so...I definitely wouldn't be able to do much if he _did_ hurt you," Garcia admitted, "but at least I would know to ring the alarm if you showed up to work with some unexplainable bruise or discomfort or something."

"Right," Iris agreed with a tight voice, trying hard to keep her face impassive as her heart jumped and her belly swooped hotly while she remembered something Barry had said when he'd fucked her for the first time: 

_"You don't want your teammates to ask why your voice is all raw, do you? Not now that Garcia knows that I’m your soulmate."_

Jesus.

Iris shouldn't be thinking about how good Barry had been giving it to her while he said that. Now was _not_ the time to get horny, not just because she was on the clock, but also because, _God,_ how many times had Barry made her come in the past twenty-eight hours? She should be satisfied for the rest of the week. 

"I can take care of myself, but thank you for your concern, Rick," she told her teammate as she opened the door again. "See you around."

"Give these thugs hell!" Garcia cheered.

Iris rushed down the hallways of the hospital in order to get outside mere seconds right as Lawton climbed into the back of their SRT van. 

The secondary team and another SWAT team under the command of the Silvertongue investigation unit were waiting for them two streets down from the facility, which was located in the middle of a shopping center in district three. Alpha nodded in silent greetings to Dinah Drake and David Singh as he, Bravo, Mike, November and Iris joined them at the command desk they'd set up in an evacuated hair salon.

"Ladies and gentlemen of Central City's finest," a familiar voice suddenly popped up in Iris' earpiece, and from the way everyone around her froze the takeover was happening all over the secure channel.

"As you can see from the scans currently projected on your monitors, generously lent to CCPD by yours truly, _free of charge:_ the officially shut down facility on fourth street is indeed an active factory manufacturing electronics that have only been registered on illegal trade deals."

Iris couldn't quite hide her smile at Cisco's cheerfulness, which sharply contrasted with the strict professionalism of the gathered police officers.

"How do you know that?" the tech manning the command desk asked when his surprise passed.

"A magician doesn't reveal his tricks, Mr. Doyle," the CEO chided playfully, addressing the name of the CCPD CSI that Iris herself hadn't known. "Ah, also, heat signature scans indicate that there are about fifty-five people in there, and let me remind you good people that even a _genius_ like me can't make satellites spy on _underground_ levels. Structural scans confirm that there is at least a basement, so, there might actually be way more people in that place."

"Damn," Singh cursed quietly, which really reflected everyone's thought.

Including the detectives, there were thirty-six police officers involved in the raid, and ten cops on standby for traffic control in case the fight spilled out of the facility. It would be more than enough to deal with fifty-five average shooters, but chances were that there were many more people in the facility.

"Can I get one of those earpieces?" The Flash's requested after he suddenly whooshed into the hair salon.

The next second, his chest was dotted with red laser lights from seven assault riffles.

"What the hell, Flash!" Iris couldn't help exclaim as she lowered her gun first, then signaled her colleagues to follow suit. "Couldn't you walk in _slowly_? This is a high risk mission and we're all on edge, _you know that!_"

She heard Lawton quietly clue in the others about the speedster being there as a non-hostile.

"Walk in slowly?" The speedster repeated with a short laugh. "To have someone among the _twenty nine SWAT officers_ outside take a shot at me? That would've alerted Gibran and the others goons in that facility."

"You got visuals on Gibran?" Iris asked with surprise, then quickly followed up: "How many hostiles total?"

Of course a speedster was the best scout one could ask for. Sergeant West remembered how he'd kept her in the loop of everyone's movement during the battle against the aliens last year. But Barry hadn't been part of the plan, so Iris hadn't thought to utilize his skills.

"Ten on ground level," the speedster reported, "guarding forty-five sleep-deprived factory workers," he added at everyone's shock at the discrepancy between his numbers and Cisco's. "But there are twenty armed men on standby in the basement. That's where Gibran was the last time I checked, and his power-dampening bracelet is _turned off_."

"Thirty armed men total," Detective Singh calculated before nodding with satisfaction. "That's more than manageable."

"Well, actually..." Cisco's voice trailed off in the comms.

His furious typing got caught by his mic. What had he found out?

"Aww, man, what happened?" The hacker wondered out loud before reporting to the team. "There is a chain message being sent all over the city, I caught it because I'm monitoring the nearest phone tower. It says, I quote: _**'maximum back up to Blackout at Fa4'**_. You guys are going to be outnumbered real quick since this is district three."

"What did you do?" Iris questioned The Flash, wincing at her own accusing tone. "_We_ were discreet getting here, but _your_ whooshing around in that facility probably triggered an alarm or something!"

She ignored Mike's quiet advice to "chill, India, don't anger him!" 

Everyone held their breaths—except Doyle who had been having a mini panic attack since The Flash arrived—as the speedster's indistinguishable face seemed to stare at Sergeant West.

"Oh, right," he finally answered with a casual snap of his gloved fingers. "Gibran's powers...He can probably _sense_ me even if he can't _see_ me. My bad. I can fix this, no worries."

"Hold on!" Iris objected, and she turned around to throw "_Quiet!_" at Mike and November who were asking Alpha for instructions behind her.

"That is _not_ the plan!" Iris reminded Barry, too angry at him to care about her colleagues' presence. "Blackout can neutralize your powers!"

"I'm faster than him—" Flash countered.

"He doesn't have to see you coming to do that!" she countered back. "He's called 'Blackout' because he's known to have absorbed all the electricity of entire blocks! Blocks, _plural!_ We're only a block and a half away from—"

Just then all power turned off, and thankfully it was daytime, but it was a gray morning in the fall so there was not much sunlight.

"Let's move!" Lawton instructed everyone, and Doyle sent his chair clattering on the ground as he hastened to obey.

They all froze when The Flash intercepted Iris.

"Damn it!" Singh exclaimed as he aimed his rifle at the speedster's head. "I thought you were here as a non-hostile, Flash!"

"I am," the dark speedster confirmed evenly. "So lower that gun in the next five seconds or I'll snap your neck."

The detective obeyed immediately, and Iris felt exasperation and outrage at her own criminal boyfriend's actions. 

"Me and my team will take care of the 'maximum back up' out of range of this blackout," Flash offered, to everyone's surprise. "So the rest of you should go ahead and focus on getting Gibran."

"The rest of us _includes_ West," Lawton argued stubbornly.

Iris felt Barry's hold on her tighten up.

"Now all of you have ten seconds to leave before I snap _all of your necks,_" the dark speedster threatened calmly, and not even five seconds later, Iris was alone with him in that hair salon.

"What the fuck, Barry!" Iris whispered angrily when he finally let her go. "This is _my team's_ mission, and you jeopardized _our plan_ by getting close to a meta-human you knew has powers that can counter yours..._Shit,_ can't Gibran sense you all the way from the factory? You're now the only source of electricity in the vicinity."

"True," he agreed with his regular voice after pressing a button in his utility belt.

Iris felt his powers disappear and was mildly distressed by that despite having meta-cuffed him before. Maybe because he wasn't in his suit then?

The two of them waited for the commotion of SWAT getting ready outside died out. "Let's go," Barry told her after looking out the window.

The two of them ran in the opposite direction of the factory, towards the first store that had its 'open' neon sign on.

(It was weird seeing The Flash run at normal speed.)

"...damn it—come on, _Barry_, why can't I even detect...Ah! SWAT team can you hear me now?" Came Cisco's voice in her com.

"I can, Mr. Ramon," Iris confirmed, remaining polite while addressing him in case the connection was restored for her teammates too. "I'm alone with The Flash, we split from the rest of the team."

"Oh, good!" He replied enthusiastically. "Hold on!"

He disconnected from the channel, and five seconds later a breach opened in the middle of the street, Crystal, Red Earth, Mitos, and Quantum stepping out of it.

"The others are kind of busy," Cisco informed Barry apologetically. "Sorry, it's just us."

Just as he said that, tires from cars and bikes screeched around the block, and Iris took a calming breath as she realized that she was living one of the worst nightmares any CCPD officer could imagine: getting ambushed by a large group of criminals in the middle of _district three_.

"'Just us' is _more than enough,_" Mitos assured as he multiplied right before the first thug fired at the group.

One of the bullets hit a clay sparrow, but many of them were stopped midair by blasts of ice.

"I have a seminar in half an hour," Caitlin informed the group with her chilly voice, "so let's make this quick!"

For ten minutes Iris barely participated in the confrontation, electing to find a good vantage point to get an occasional peek at Barry's peripheral movements as he dealt with the brunt of each new wave of backup. The Sergeant had to show her badge and at times point her rifle at a few 'civilians' in order to have them mind their own business (most of them were probably family or friends of the people getting their asses kicked by Team Flash).

A random shiver down her spine made her look to the location where she'd last caught a sight of Barry, and that's when she detected an odd green shimmery light. She signaled two of Mitos' clones to head towards it with her.

"Flash!" The two clones exclaimed when they and Iris saw the speedster and a dozen criminals moving extremely slowly while encased in some sort of green media.

Iris pushed one of the clones out of the way of flying pieces of sharp metal, and cursed under her breath when she saw the other clone turning into a golden statue.

She and the surviving clone retreated behind a building, though Iris had to bend slightly forward to look at the weird pool of gold at the feet of the statued clone. Her eyes followed the thin stream that branched off of it and led to...the golden foot of Keith Kenyon.

Goldface.

He was holding a crossbow over his shoulder, of all things. Iris didn't have the luxury to wonder why there he had golden rings rather than an arrow as ammunition because she had to bent backwards to avoid getting cut by more shards.

"Here's your soulmate, Flash!" Amunet Black announced cheerfully as she recalled e her shards of metal form a metal glove around her raised fist. "Can he hear me, Turtle? I hope he can hear me!"

"Yes he can," confirmed a stout man standing a few feet behind the king and queen of crime, who was sweating profusely as he stared at The Flash and the other people affected by that green film.

Was that the mysterious fifth meta-human? So, he had some time-suspending powers...

_Gibran was a decoy!_ Iris guessed. _This is the meta whose powers counter a speedster's. Did Silvertongue and Sweigeld fool us? Where are they?__  
_

More of Mitos clones came running along with Crystal and Red Earth. 

"Wait! Goldface and Blacksmith are there, with a time-slowing meta-human!" Iris warned them before they could turn around the corner while a few sirens could be heard not far.

"We know!" A dozen of clones reassured her as they carelessly threw themselves at the the enemy. Iris spied them all disappear after getting hit by Amunet Black's shards.

"Keith, I _want_ this meta!" Blacksmith declared loudly. "Catch him for me! Can you imagine? Controlling _just one man_ to get the work of many more done! How exciting!"

Jesus. That woman was insane.

"Damn it," the real Dayton Black next to Iris exhaled loudly. "I'm getting tired, but Cisco and Caitlin are done rounding up everyone, the police are arresting those who didn't run away."

"But before that, how about I put a few holes in The Flash, hmm?" Amunet Black announced cheerfully just as Cisco and Caitlin appeared from a breach.

"What the hell?" The two of them exclaimed in unison.

"Iris West!" Amunet Black singsonged. "Come out, darling! Are you going to let your soulmate die _alone? _That would the most cruel death of all!"

_You're not laying a finger on Barry,_ Iris warned the metalokinetic in her head. _Not on my watch._

"There's a guy behind Goldface and Blacksmith," the cop let Barry's friends know as she partially disassembled her rifle, placed in on the ground then unholstered a small stun gun. "He's trapped The Flash in a time-slowing bubble. Can you teleport him away from here, Quantum? The rest of us will distract the other two."

"Sounds like a plan," Cisco agreed as he extended his fist to open a breach.

"Oh, and Goldface is using the ground to get in physical contact with his targets," Sergeant West warned, "so watch your feet in order not to get turned into gold!"

After everyone indicated that they were ready, Iris signaled them all except Cisco to follow, taking point with two more clones.

For almost a minute, Mitos's expandable clones, Crystal's ice shields and Red Earth's animated figurines managed to protect everyone from Black's sharp pieces of metal.

Then, just as Iris wondered what Cisco was doing, she heard the zipping sound of a projectile.

"Quantum!" Caitlin screamed in distress, and Iris had to shoot at the shards Amunet threw at the distracted ice meta-human. Thankfully the pieces of metal dropped after receiving the electric charge of the stun gun.

Another sound of the projectile, and Iris startled as wooden and clay birds dropped from above.

Then she threw herself to the ground and rolled behind the time bubble to avoid the same sharp metal pieces she'd neutralized not even twenty seconds ago.

When she straightened up into a crouch, the cop heard the whistling sound of an object catapulted in the air again.

_Crossbow_, she remembered just as she saw Barry moving at almost normal speed in the green zone, his red (and yellow!) lightning sparking all around him as he walked in slow motion towards her.

Thunk!

Iris blinked when she heard that projectile sound again, then watched all the clones disappear as the real Dayton Black yelped, then tried to remove the_ bracelet_ that Goldface had launched at him.

"Yessss! You got him, honey!" Amunet announced happily. "My turn now!"

_What the hell?_

The cop stood up and stepped to the side, then gasped when she saw the others: Mina, Caitlin, then Cisco further away.

All unconscious on the ground, a golden bracelet around an arm or an ankle.

_Power-dampening bracelets, _the cop realized. _That's what Goldface had loaded on the crossbow, not rings._

_"_IRIS!"

When Iris looked at Barry, he was already by her side, his fully yellow lightning encasing them both in flash time.

His hands were gripping her arms so tightly that she winced at the sharp pain in her back and chest.

_Wait, what? Back? Chest?  
_

"Iris, no no no..." Barry whispered miserably as he slid down to the ground with her, then hastily removed her headgear and tactical vest.

Iris cried out at the pain the peal off of the kevlar layer caused, and her boyfriend apologized in a watery voice. She could almost feel the pieces of metal that had stopped burrowing into her skin, muscles and fat tissue, and ah they had definitely broken a rib or two.

_At least she didn't hurt him,_ the cop thought in relief as she watched tears rolled down her lover's cheeks onto her own. _Blacksmith didn't hurt Barry. My soulmate. The man I love._

"I love you, Barry," she let him know weakly, before it was too late.

"I love you Iris," Barry replied as he kissed her hair. "I love you so much, please don't leave me, Iris, _please_..."

He suddenly perked up, his green eyes shining with tears and hope and determination, as if he had _a plan._

"_I can fix this,_ Iris," he announced hurriedly as he dropped a kiss on her forehead. "Please hold on, I can fix this! If I go back in time..._Iris!_"

_You said that you didn't do time travel,_ Iris tried to remind him, but she couldn't speak anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> I'm very worried about Joe on the show because of the trailer of the next episode. With Barry losing his speed, a do-over isn't possible. Fear not, in this fic Barry's powers won't fail him!


	29. Just To Find My Heart Is Beating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry returns to the time before things went wrong, and it makes all the difference; Iris says the three words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penultimate chapter!!! A bit of action, a bit of cop gossip, and West-Allen relationship talk.  
Amunet Black is her own warning!
> 
> India, Mike, November, Quebec, etc. designate codenames of the MFU-SWAT team members, if you remember. India=Iris.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

**2016**

Now that Barry felt like his powers were working just right and that he was running towards the right destination across the space-time continuum, he was double-guessing the exact time that he needed to get back to.

He'd first thought that it was best to go back a few minutes before Iris...Before that meta-human caught him into his green-colored time bubble.

But now that his mind was less frantic, and that he'd learned from his future self that the source of his powers, this Speed Force the other time traveler had talked about last year, prevented catastrophic events from unraveling because of time travel? Barry thought that he had to go back even earlier than that.

He had to go before he and Iris had split on the battlefield; before the blackout; before he'd jeopardized Iris' mission by going too close to Gibran...Heck, maybe he shouldn't have tagged along Iris' team in the first place? She'd been very upset about his interference.

And _he'd_ been upset about her going out in the field with her gold mark. But as Lawton had said, Iris wasn't _defenseless,_ especially when she was working with her team. She was a great cop, a good fighter and a damn good investigator too. Maybe if she'd been a detective and he a CSI, they would've worked together. In another life...

_Wait._

He was not a CSI in this life, but he _was_ a researcher at Ramon Industries. He didn't have to suit up to be of use!

Barry was so focused on his thoughts that he almost missed his time window and nearly keeled over stopping abruptly in the middle of...Cisco's office.

"Hey," The engineer acknowledged his presence with a lifted finger, his phone tucked between an ear and a shoulder and his other hand holding a tablet, then he spoke numbers with...Preston, right, he'd been on the phone with Preston super early that morning.

Barry looked down at himself. He wasn't in his suit but in his training gear, and he had the syphons still in their insulated cases, though not neatly placed like when he'd finished assembling them in record time after Cisco had showed him how to. So, he'd already tested them.

"All in working order?" Cisco asked as soon as he hung up. "I can bring them to Iris—"

"No, I'll do it," Barry reassured him just like he had the first time around, and Cisco frowned just like that time.

"Barry, if you try to lock her up somewhere..." the breacher warned him just like before.

"I won't, okay? I won't!" The speedster couldn't help replying with a defensive tone just like the first time.

Of course he wouldn't go to that extreme! Why did Cisco and Caitlin think that he'd do that? Iris would be _furious_ at him and would probably give him the silent treatment for twelve more days, or longer!

"Well then," Cisco acknowledge with a nod as he stood from his seat. "I'll get ready to assist CCPD remotely, _for free._ Ugh, this vigilantism thing doesn't pay. At all. No wonder you started as a thief, man."

"It's way too soon for you to be cracking jokes, _traitor!_" Barry deadpanned before speeding away.

He changed into business clothes and arrived at the Central City General Hospital, where Iris' team was checking on Enrique Garcia.

The biochemist waited nervously by the main doors, exchanging glances with the MFU-SWAT officers waiting for their teammates.

_She's alive, she's alive, _please_ tell me that she's alive,_ he begged in his head.

"Barry?" Iris' voice called out, and oh _thank fuck._

The speedster slowed down time in order to get over his emotional reaction at seeing the love his life alive, uninjured, and calm, if only surprised.

"Hey, Iris—I mean, Sergeant West," he greeted politely before nodding at Lawton too. "Lieutenant."

"Who the hell are you?" Deadshot asked, and Barry struggled to keep himself from rolling his eyes.

"Sir, this is Barry Allen," Iris immediately introduced him. "He's my boyfriend."

_Damn right, _Barry commented in his head as he stood a bit straighter in front of his girlfriend's commanding officer.

"You have a _boyfriend?_" Lawton questioned Iris before addressing Barry. "You're aware that _The Flash_ is into her, right? If the dark speedster learns that you exist, you may as well get one of these gadgets for your own protection...And that won't save you from getting your neck snapped or a vibrating hand to the heart."

Is that really what people thought he'd do: kill Iris' lover?

Well, he would definitely _intimidate_ anyone who'd think that they had a chance with her. He probably should feel bad about it, but since Iris had chosen him as her lover anyways, he didn't care one bit.

"And what's your boyfriend doing here, West?" Lawton asked. "He should be in protective custody or at least stick to your parents. People trying to collect that gold mark of yours might get to him to lure you out...Your relationship isn't all over social media, I hope?"

"It's not," both Barry and Iris reassured him in unison.

"I came to bring you this," he informed the two cops after Iris lifted an expecting eyebrow at him. "Courtesy of Ramon Industry."

"These are polarized current siphons," he explained as Lawton inspected one of the gadgets. "If you're struck with an electric shock that's above the safety threshold for human brain cells, it will immediately suck it up. The blast will still hurt, but you won't be seriously injured and you might even stay conscious. Each siphon might not work more than three times so don't rely on them too much."

"Evidently," Lawton commented before realization dawned on him. "Ah! So _he's_ the informant you were talking about earlier, West? Makes sense that you were so confident about getting these gadgets on time. And _now_ I understand why you volunteered for that consultation gig with Ramon Industries."

"What? No, that's not—" Iris tried to correct her colleague, but he waved a dismissive hand at her.

"I'm not judging, West, you aren't breaking any frat rules," Lawton pointed out as he started walking away. "You have five minutes to reassure your boyfriend that you'll be safe and that you can handle yourself," he added with an obvious teasing tone.

_Five minutes in real time,_ Barry specified as he followed Iris around the corner to speak privately.

"Just like Team Alpha said, I'll be—" Iris started, but he cut her off with a kiss as he made them entered flash time.

He poured all his relief into that kiss, and Iris probably mistook it for worry because she indulged him and let him lift her off her toes and prop her against a wall without making any comment about him manhandling her.

Her uniform was stupidly heavy even without the cumbersome headgear. Maybe Cisco could make a deal with CCPD to supply them with uniforms like the one Iris had taken from Waller's secret facility?

"Barry, I'll be fine," Iris assured him against his lips when he allowed her to breathe. "You can monitor us with Cisco if you want."

That was a good idea, but he had other matters to attend to, like trying to identify that time-slowing meta-human. Since he wasn't going to alert Gibran of his presence at the factory, Goldface and Blacksmith were unlikely to show up with the backup. And if Barry had no luck finding out who that guy was, maybe Silvertongue would tell him. It hadn't been nine yet when Iris had...when she...

_She's alive,_ he reminded himself.

"I love you, Iris," he whispered, kissing the words onto her lips.

"Barry," Iris exhaled as he kissed her neck, worshiping her pulse point. The proof that her heart was beating strong, which helped finally bring his own heartbeat down to his regular if still fast rate.

_She's alive, she's fine,_ he reassured himself yet again, but he still had to put his hands all over her.

"Oh God, Barry, _wait,_" Iris requested breathily.

She tried to stop him from slipping his hand under the thick layer of kevlar and past her tactical belt to get to her pants fly, but her attempt was pretty weak so he kept going.

No one could hear them as long as they were in the time bubble, but Barry still swallowed her moan and whimpers as he worked her with his fingers.

He loved how responsive Iris was to his touch, and that he didn't even need to use his powers to make her come fast and hard. She was putty in his hand and she just took and took _and took_ all the pleasure he gave her. Even when she was overwhelmed, she welcomed his love and was always ready for more after a short break.

Once they took care of Kenyon and Black, Barry would fulfill his promise to make her lose her voice from screaming in bed. And in the shower, and on the kitchen counter—ah, they should definitely give his ball chair another try, and Barry had started daydreaming about Iris' hands tied in _purple faux fur handcuffs_...

"What's gotten...gotten over you—_Barry!_" Iris chided him once she came down from an intense orgasm.

She groaned in embarrassment with eyes tightly shut at the obscenely wet noise that resonated when he slipped his fingers out of her, but then she looked on eagerly as he licked her juices. "Aren't we...Aren't we having too much sex?" she asked innocently.

He had to put her down before laughing at her serious tone, and he laughed harder when she rejected his offer to help her fix her uniform, accusing him of trying to seduce her into a second round.

God, he loved her so much. He'd never let anything happen to her ever again.

"Hey, after thinking about it I think that I've actually been in that factory before," he told her truthfully once she was presentable again. "There's a basement for sure, and last time there were twenty men armed to the teeth stationed there. Plus ten ambulant guards supervising forty to forty-five factory workers."

"The numbers will probably be different today, though," Iris speculated, still a bit breathless. "Damn it, I'm...I can't go back to the team like that, my vitals are still all over the place."

"Oh sorry, sorry," Barry apologized as he brought them out of flash time and as expected Iris recovered quickly. "Flash time seems to tire non-speedsters pretty quickly. Sorry, I forgot."

"No worries," his girlfriend reassured him after letting out a quick sigh of relief. "Um, so, is there anything about the factory itself that you remember?"

"There aren't any trigger alarms anywhere," he informed her. "And I'm sure that Cisco will give you the whole layout of the place, but there are hidden janitor closets all over the place, they're marked by yellow strips above the invisible doors. Just in case your siphon stops working. Oh, yeah tell the others, a siphon isn't functional anymore—"

"Once it drops off, yes Barry, I know. Cisco told me last night, remember?" Iris pointed out. "Those hidden doors might get handy though, thanks."

Their five minutes were almost out, so he kissed her forehead, whispered, "be safe," and started walking away, but she stopped him by grabbing his arm.

"Hm?" He acknowledged as he looked back at her, and got alerted by her intense gaze on him. "What is it, Iris?"

"I just...I mean, I..." she stuttered a bit, which was rare for her. "Thank you for trusting me to handle myself, Barry. I know that both you and my dad mean well, but I need to be out there. I'm a cop, it's my job. I want to help make our city safe, and I don't need to be treated like a glass doll."

Barry was disappointed in himself that he'd had to _lose her_ before reconsidering his overprotective behavior. She'd fought aliens like the rest of them. She'd moped the floor of that warehouse with a highly trained soldier like Thawne when he'd had her at a disadvantage. He remembered hearing about her _solo_ arrest of Kyle Nimbus at The Hedonist.

Iris West didn't have superpowers, but she _wasn't_ powerless. That tiny frame of hers packed a punch, pun intended.

"Are you saying that you actually love it when I manhandle you, because it shows that I know you can take it?" He decided to acknowledge her thanks with humor.

"Fuck you, Allen," she deadpanned with mock annoyance as she let him go and walked past him to join her team.

"Any time and anywhere, West," he teased as he followed along, smiling widely when she glared at him.

But then she smiled fondly and waved at him before hopping into the back of the armored van, and once the vehicle was out of sight, Barry sped back to R.I.

After a long but unsuccessful search of that time-slowing meta, he took a break to speed a panicked Caitlin to her seminar.

"I didn't hear my alarm," she informed him as he dropped her off. "Thanks so much Barry. I know it wasn't a matter of life or death, but hey abusing our powers once in a blue moon for our personal lives should be allowed, right?"

_If you only knew,_ he thought as he wished her good luck and waved her goodbye.

He almost tripped over himself when he got back to his office because Silvertongue's tablet was receiving an online call. He changed into his suit and made his face vibrate before accepting the video call.

His vocal cords made an odd sound when he took in the sight at the other end of the device.

Brendan Li and Pamela Sweigeld, lying on the floor, holding hands, their individual _pools of blood_ mingling. 

_Murdered,_ both of them.

The odd wounds on their chests...he knew them intimately.

"Oh it's you!" Came in Amunet black's annoying voice before her war-painted face came into view. "Oh, that gives me an idea! I'll just tell Keith that _you're_ the one who killed them!"

Barry sped to Cisco's workshop, not bothering to apologize for startling him. He plugged the tablet to one of the extra computers on the other side of Cisco's station and silently pointed at the tablet so the hacker could trace the call.

"Your husband would have to be stupid to believe that I'm the one who put _tiny holes_ into his right hand's heart," he replied to Blacksmith. "Well, he _married you,_ so I guess..."

"A mistake on _my_ part," the telekinetic meta claimed as she waved her hand, and Barry watched, speechless, as she made bigger holes in the corpses of people who'd considered her _a friend._ After she was done, the holes were big enough to pass for the kind of chest wound he'd inflict on his enemies, though as a biochemist Barry knew that an autopsy would reveal that the murder weapon was metallic.

"Pam always refused to peek into Keith's mind to check if he truly loves me," the lunatic woman lamented as she took a seat after rearranging the camera of the device she was using for this video call. "Sometimes he seems to like money more than me, you know? He's canceled our dates to help Brendan seal a deal _so many times_. What kind of soulmate puts business before romance?"

Barry didn't reply, though he almost cursed out when Cisco shook his head.

_Can't trace the call, _his best friend clearly meant to say.

"And what soulmate let his other half face a meta-human alone with a gold mark on her head, huh?" Amunet Black asked again, her words making Barry's stomach twist. "She doesn't have powers, your beloved Sergeant West, does she? It would be impossible for her to be a MFU-SWAT officer if she was, right?"

Barry had known that Iris' information would eventually be accessed, but he'd expected Cynthia's work to hold things off for a few more days. Maybe Goldface had sent a spy investigate in person.

"If you _touch_ Iris," the speedster warned Blacksmith.

"Don't worry Flash! I won't kill her _in_ _secret,_" she promised as she waved a finger at him like a scolding school teacher. "She must die _in front of you._ I'll carve her chest neatly, she's too pretty for a half-hearted job. And you'll watch me do it, powerless. I'll go at it very slowly so you won't miss a thing. You need to learn how to appreciate doing things slow, you know?" She said then laughed at her own morbid joke.

'Doing things slow.' She was alluding to the mysterious meta-human with the green odd time bubble, and it made him want to throw up.

"Anyways, gotta go and share the bad news of Bren and Pam's deaths with Keith," Black announced as she stood up and faked a sad pout. "I'll see you later, yes? Bye Flash!"

As soon as the called disconnected, Barry phased his hand through the tablet in fury.

"Dude!" Cisco exclaimed. "Good thing that I already downloaded all the useful data from it."

"By the way, Iris 'badass' West got her team out of the factory in one piece," the hacker reported. "She and Dinah were the only ones who managed to keep their siphons on. Well, Dinah didn't even need hers. That sonic shield of hers is dope, man. Glad that she switched off her com before using it, though, because even from the others' coms it was loud and cringe-worthy."

"Did they arrest Gibran?" Barry inquired as he walked around the station.

"Not sure," Cisco answered. "There was, wait for it, _a blackout_, so the coms went off until the last minute of your own cringe-worthy and horrifying video call. They're gathering around back at the hair salon, where their command station and tech is.

He pressed a button and the coms feed came on speakers.

"Gibran's on the loose," Lawton was reporting, "but West got a tracker on him. Doyle, can you share the tracking map with Mr. Ramon?"

"Sure thing, give me a minute," the tech on the CCPD's side confirmed. Indeed a minute later, one of Cisco's screens displayed the map in question.

"Damn it," Barry heard Iris' voice whisper on the secure channel.

Damn it indeed. Gibran seemed to be headed towards one of the larger warehouses both Silvertongue's ledger and tablet hinted was a headquarters of sort in district four.

It was guaranteed to be full of thugs, normal ones _and_ meta-humans. At least they had a confirmed location. And where had Iris gotten that tracker? Barry could tell that it wasn't Cisco's, it would've given more info than a simple GPS data. Brilliant idea nonetheless.

"We can't follow him there," Detective Drake said in the coms. "That's most definitely an executive center where Goldface gathers with his associates. Quite a few of them are metas, and _all_ of them have their personal armies of bodyguards. Even if we raided the place with all available SWAT teams, we'd be outnumbered and overpowered."

A round of expletives resonated in the speakers.

"Well, let's reconvene for a debrief on this raid first," Detective Singh proposed. "Then we'll check if we can't have the FBI lend us one or two HRTs. Mr. Ramon, you're still with us?"

"Still here, Detective," Cisco confirmed with a serious tone. "But I gotta go for a meeting. Sounds like your assignment got even harder, CCPD. I'll see what other gadgets I can gather around for you, Central City's finest. Ramon's out."

He didn't disconnect himself, though, he just muted his microphone. After a few minutes, two out of the three teams disconnected their coms too: the investigation unit team and the primary MFU-SWAT team. Sounds of movement, quiet chatter and equipment being put away still resonated from the secondary MFU-SWAT team's side.

"Those gadgets are cool but they won't cut it, even if we get reinforcements from the FBI," some guy mumbled after the sound of an engine roared in the background. "Goldface's fucking untouchable!"

"Chill, November," a female cop Barry didn't recognize replied to her teammate. "We won against fucking aliens last year, remember?"

"Because we had a bunch of _freaks_ on our side that time," some other guy pointed out. "Let's not lie to ourselves, _they're_ the ones who won the war. No way we can win against _them_ now."

"First of all, I don't want to hear you say freak in reference to metas ever again," a voice Barry recognized as belonging to that team's leader, Mike, chimed in. "Second of all, it wasn't just the metas out there fighting, we pulled our weight there. And it was India who got the good alien to help, remember? Without that guy, the funky smoke wouldn't have dissipated. Even the meta-humans were getting tired, while the aliens were still going strong. So without Sergeant West, our victory might not have come as early as it did."

"Why's West _still_ India, by the way?" some new male voice asked. "We all got bumped up except her."

"'Cause she already got bumped plenty of times under Peterson," another unknown guy explained. "Remember when _she_ was Quebec? Yeah she's good, but she's no better than any of us. Plus she's newer than anyone here except Yankee, and she has broken a few protocols going behind Sing's back to get intel on Silvertongue. That's reckless."

"Oh, and not only that," November spoke again. "Who else here is shocked that The Flash didn't rush in to kick Gibran's ass and throw him at West's feet like he did for the Bronzeskin case? Seriously, she's just lucky that the Dark Speedster fancies her. Like Quebec said, she's nothing special." 

Barry and Cisco exchanged bewildered looks when a few cops snickered.

What kind of brain damage had these guys suffered during their face off against Blackout? Iris was, in her own team leader's words, 'one of CCPD's best assets'!

"You're lucky that I don't like Alpha, or I'd report you bunch of losers to him," Mike stated sharply. "Sergeant West is hands down one of our top five officers in all of SWAT."

"Y'all just jealous," another female accused her teammates after a moment of immature huffs and mumbling.

"You couldn't shut up about Sergeant West when she was a patrol coordinator, but now that frat rules prevent you from dating her, you can't acknowledge her worth?" She called them out. "The Bronzeskin case was a one-time thing. She arrested that green gas meta on her own, remember? No help from The Flash whatsoever. Yeah, the dark speedster is all smitten, and why shouldn't he be? Sergeant West's skilled and she's fucking gorgeous, plus she's the only one who's ever arrested him. He must respect that about her on top of everything."

"You call her 'reckless', but she risked her career to get the info the investigation unit needed to make a breakthrough on the Goldface's case," Mike corrected them. "The investigation unit has been sitting on Silvertongue for _three_ _years,_ all these senior detectives have nothing on _one of ours._ And if Sergeant West wasn't any better than the rest of us, she would've been knocked down by that meta too. Drake's a meta, so it makes sense that she was able to hold her own against Gibran. But India doesn't have superpowers. Yet she's the one who got close enough to get a tracker on Gibran, which is better than having The Flash just knock him down. Now we know where to look for Goldface's primary activities. This raid wouldn't have happened in the first place without backup from Ramon, and who's the one who hooked us up with that stingy genius? Exactly, Sergeant West, _yet again._ The woman probably has zero social life, she's in cop mode twenty-four seven. It's in her fucking blood, in case you dumbasses forgot that she's Zulu's daughter. Put some respect on her name."

An awkward silence settled within the group, and without the background noise Barry would've thought that the coms had gone offline.

Cisco disconnected himself when the group started chatting about the raid.

"Bunch of dumbasses, indeed," the hacker commented as he got up from his seat, then eyed Barry curiously. "I gotta say though...I _was_ shocked that you didn't piggy back on that raid. Nothing wrong with that, man. Iris' your girlfriend now and she's got that gold mark. It was in your rights to make sure she was safe."

"She was safe with her team," Barry simply stated, shrugging his shoulders not as nonchalantly. "You're the one who told me not jeopardize her career with my impulsiveness the other day," he added with a frown.

"Yeah, but I said that because your plan was to _kill everyone,_ not follow along Iris' plan," Cisco specified. "She must be frustrated with the outcome of the mission, though. That place's gotta be a fortress. I can tell from a quick look that lots of signal scramblers are in the way of precise satellite imaging, but I can still hack into their CCTV system..._After_ my meeting. Then I need to go get brunch with Cynthia. Feel free to do some preliminary scanning, though."

"Sure, thanks. And good luck," the speedster replied as he took a seat on the vacated chair, but before he checked the scans, he reflected on something that had been said by the MFU-SWAT Mike.

_"The woman probably has zero social life, she's in cop mode twenty-four seven." _

Barry wanted to deny that fact. After all, Iris _had_ a social life: she had Linda Park and Stacy Conwell as best-friends and she had him as her boyfriend. She was good friends with Cisco too, and by association with Caitlin and Cynthia.

But would Iris and Cisco have become friends without their work partnership? Barry doubted it. They'd made poor first impressions of each other.

Just like Barry had made a terrible first impression to Iris in the interrogation room two years back. After the Bronzeskin case, Iris had actually asked him to stay away from her forever. If she hadn't been intent on solving Snart's murder by all means necessary, she wouldn't have let him close to her. She'd avoided him after closing that case, in fact, and had rejected his request for a date at Jitters...And she'd walked away without a second of hesitation when Barry had asked her to leave, after confessing to the murder of Eddie Thawne. After everything they'd been through: interacting with Amanda Waller and a speedster from the future, getting shaken up by Hannibal Bates' death, befriending a Green Martian and fighting White Martians...After _all that_ she'd left anyway, telling him that no, she'd _never_ give him a chance to land a date with her.

And they _hadn't_ gone on a date since, not a real one at least. Rogues? Undercover mission; Goldface's ball? Undercover mission; Dinner at Frankie's? Negotiation meeting with Silvertongue and Sweigeld.

Yes, Iris had accepted to be Barry's girlfriend, but she'd done so by giving him a casual 'okay'. She hadn't replied to any of his 'I love you's, and she low-key complained about the amount of sex they were having.

Was she...Was Iris _using him_ for her career? Of course she was an excellent cop, but with his help she'd obtained results that no cop could've ever hoped for, in a very short amount of time to boot.

_So what? I don't care,_ he told himself. _We're together and that's all that matters. I'm happy to help her protect our city. I'd do it even if she didn't ask me to._

He metaphorically shook off his insecurities, then checked on whatever the satellite scans could gather on that large compound—it was more of a fortress than a warehouse, indeed.

The place would be quite difficult if not impossible to raid for the police...But _The Flash and his team _had good chances once they got a better look at the layout of the place. They might be outnumbered, though.

Barry wanted to take Goldface down asap, and not just because of Iris' gold mark: Amunet Black was about to frame him for the murder of Silvertongue and Sweigeld, and who knows what Kenyon's reaction would be? Barry didn't want all of Central City to turn into a meta-human war zone because of him.

* * *

**Two days later **

The _unconditional_ gold mark on The Flash had gone live the night of the factory raid, and so far only meta-human criminals had tried to collect it. Barry had needed his friends' help to take down the Mardon brothers, but he'd managed to defeat another meta on his own. The guy happened to be a CC High alumnus like Barry and Iris, Tony Woodward, who could turn his skin into any metal he touched.

More metas would try to collect The Flash's gold mark, and none of them cared about collateral damage. But Barry did.

Which was the reason why he and Iris were still in bed, chatting after two rounds of morning sex. Iris knew that normally Barry would already be helping build the huge meta-human center by now.

Iris herself needed to get ready for work soon, and on top of training her team was to have a meeting with the investigative unit and the FBI. Goldface was gearing for a massive assault, that much was clear. He had incredible resources, and CCPD alone didn't stand a chance against him, not even with the couple of HRTs that the feds was mobilizing to help. They'd have the resources, but not the protection against dozens of meta-humans.

Team Flash had the means to fight other metas, but they'd be outnumbered by all the other thugs who worked for Goldface and his associates.

There was a clear solution to their problem, but when Iris had brought that up to her dad the other night, he'd interrogated her on her relationship with Barry instead.

"Hey, so I was thinking," Iris told Barry after snuggling against his chest, half drowsy from all the endorphins. She might need some of the crazy ginger-celery shots that Caitlin liked to drink to stay sharp when she got tired.

Iris didn't truly have any complaint about the sex, but things were getting out of hands. It's not like she wasn't used to being sore, what with all the training and missions with MFU, but it was different to feel constantly sore...down there, you know? It didn't hurt, it wasn't even that uncomfortable most of the time, but some movements just reminded her that she had a lover who doubled as a human vibrator, and it was so embarrassing _how turned on_ just the thought of that got her.

Surely things would cool down once their relationship wasn't so new. It would pass.

"You were_ thinking?_" Barry repeated with mock outrage. "Not while I was supposed to be fucking your brains out, I hope. Otherwise you're wounding my pride, Sergeant."

"Shut u-up!" Iris replied with a quiet giggle. "And actually, the idea came to me before you distracted me for round two, speedster. So don't distract me now."

"I'm listening," he assured her after dropping a kiss on her disheveled hair.

"What if we worked together to take down Kenyon?" She proposed cautiously.

"Uh, that's what we were doing until you got CCPD involved, remember?" He pointed out. "Not complaining, your raid was even more successful than I predicted...thanks to your brilliant idea to bug Gibran," he added with a nudge of his chin against her hair and she mumbled a shy "thanks."

She was getting too comfortable and cozy though, so she took a deep breath then sat up in bed, and as she predicted Barry followed her up.

"Iris?" He called out.

"I had a talk with my parents," she let him know as calmly as she could. "About us. They're worried about me. They think that this relationship will hurt me long-term."

"I'd never hurt you, Iris," Barry promise as he ran a gentle hand up and down her bare back. "I swear to you—"

"Not physically," she corrected his assumption as she twisted at the waist to face him. "Not directly either. _Barry Allen and Iris West_ are fine, I can't wait to tell the whole world about us, Bear..."

His face lit up for a few seconds before falling down.

"Is this about...Peterson?" He asked quietly. "Your parents won't forgive me about that? I don't care, you've already forgiven me so—"

"No, I haven't," Iris immediately corrected him, her eyes as wide in shock as his. "I never will forgive you for that. Barry, what kind of _cop_ would I be if—"

"Then why did you...?" He cut her off with an incomplete question, then sped out of the bed, emerging fully clothed in pajamas.

"Barry," she called softly, sad to see him look so hurt, to know that he felt betrayed by her words.

"Are you with me only because I'm useful to your career?" He questioned her urgently.

"Barry, what?" She reacted, confused.

Where was that insecurity coming from?

_Maybe from the fact that he's told you the three words multiple times and you haven't said them back?_ She pointed out to herself.

"I don't care," he claimed, but she could tell that it wasn't true. "We're together and that's what matters the most to me. I just...I want us to be on the same page, that's all. I guess that we didn't really establish any expectations for our relationship..." he added as he rubbed the back of his neck, a clear tell that he was nervous.

"Barry, I'm not with you because of my job," Iris tried to reassure him but from the look of it he wasn't convinced. "I just told you that I couldn't wait to tell the world about us. That's why we're meeting Linda and Stacy tonight, remember? Cynthia will be there too but she already knows, so—"

"Yeah, Cynthia knows who I am," he stated flatly with a shrug. "But your friends will only know about Barry Allen, not about The Flash—"

"Because you _are_ Barry Allen!" She argued passionately. "The Flash is this..._persona_ that you created when you thought that the kind, brilliant person that you are wasn't enough to help the vulnerable meta-humans of your city."

"I wasn't! I'm still not enough!" He argued. "Barry Allen couldn't do anything when—"

"Couldn't, _past tense_," she emphasized. "You've got your money back, Barry, and I know that you've been donating a lot of it to shelters and community centers. But people don't hear about you the way they hear about The Flash."

"Are you asking me to reveal my identity?" Barry questioned, confused.

"Of course not, babe," she denied with a scoff. "I don't want to spend my days protecting you from all the groupies."

"What groupies? I'm a fucking criminal," he reminded her. "A killer. With a few exceptions, all the metas I know are scared of me! _My own friends_ are scared of me! You're the only one who isn't scared—"

"Because I know exactly who you really are," she insisted. "When I say that I'm not going to forgive you for Peterson, I'm talking about you The Flash, not you Barry Allen."

She'd realized it on Thursday, after they'd fooled around against a wall of the hospital: that she'd been able to fall in love with him despite her hatred for what he'd done because she'd been dealing with two different personalities.

"We're one and the same!" He claimed. "Barry Allen, The Flash, there's no difference except for the suit!"

"That's not true, Bear," she denied as she shuffled forward on the bed and reached a hand to him.

He just stared at it, confused and upset.

"Barry, The Flash is who you needed to be when things were _extreme,_" she pointed out as she dropped her hand. "When despair and violence were all around you. The guy who was at war with General Eiling, who was tricked into hurting me by Eddie Thawne."

She was relieved when he sat down at the edge of the bed, a bit too far in her opinion but it was better than nothing.

"But since the aliens, since helping the other metas hasn't required you to be violent, who have you been, Barry?" She questioned rhetorically. "Exactly who you _always have been:_ Barry Allen, the man who warned me that things weren't as they seemed to be in our city—not just in the interrogation room, but at the charity ball to solve Len's murder and in your living room right next door to identify the creator of the cop killer. The guy who's been in love with me for ten years, who promised to give me everything I want, who acknowledges my worth, and who makes me so, _so happy._"

He gave her a small smile at that, and as soon as he dropped a hand from his lap onto the bed, she reached out again, and he reached back this time.

"The man who hates guns and knives," she kept going, "who wanted to be a CSI to help the police give justice to victims of crimes. The brilliant biotech researcher at Ramon Industries. The guy who lost so much but still wants to give to others...the man _I love._"

"Iris," he reacted, almost choking on her name before pulling her towards him.

"I love you, Barry," she reiterated as she straddled him and held his face with both hands, appreciative of his instinct to keep her balanced on his lap by holding her at the waist.

"I _landed_ the most amazing man in Central City," she let him know. "You're not perfect and neither am I, because we're human. You happen to be a _meta_-human, and I know that you want to do good with your powers. In fact, that's all you've been doing for the past year. Like you said, you've been already working with me to take down Goldface. How could I be using you for my career, when you've already made protecting Central City _your mission?_"

She'd come full circle, and wasn't surprised that Barry had finally caught onto her idea.

"You want The Flash to work _with CCPD,_ not just you," he realized, shocked. "Iris, I killed so many cops..."

"And you'll never be granted amnesty or forgiveness for it," she asserted with a sad shake of her head. "But you'll have our understanding, speedster. The only death you'd be resented for is Peterson's, since the other cops were scumbags. With the exception of the new Lima, all my teammates know what happened with Peterson that day: we fired shots at you and Dominic _first,_ and you gave us a chance to leave, but Peterson refused to obey—it doesn't justify you killing him, but my teammates know that you weren't mindlessly slaughtering all the cops you saw. In fact, the moment Dominic told you that Thawne had tricked you into hating me, you stopped being hostile to my team."

He nodded quietly, then winced.

"They all know that I'm in love with you, as The Flash I mean," he stated sheepishly. "The secondary team too. I wasn't subtle about it, but I didn't realize that some of your colleagues were undermining your worth because of me."

"They know my worth whether they admit it or not," Iris reassured him with a shrug. "It's _you_ they don't know, you who they don't appreciate. Even after you fought with us against the aliens, you still have bad press. Your heroism will never be acknowledged because of your reputation as a cop killer. Why? Because CCPD hasn't been transparent about who most of your victims truly were, what they'd done. But if you start working with us officially..."

"I don't care about my public reputation, I only care about what _you _think of me," he claimed childishly as he buried his nose in the crook of her neck, and she ran a hand in his hair while rubbing his lower back with the other.

"But you want to help protect the city, right?" she argued softly. "You can't do that if you're worried sick about the impact of your gold mark on people's safety in the streets. You haven't been to the construction site of the meta-human center in three days. We need to get Goldface before he goes all out because he thinks that you killed his friends. Ugh, Black is such a bitch!"

Barry went from holding her with his hands to wrapping her in his arms, his whole body going tense.

Cisco had repeated to Iris the threat that Blacksmith had spoken to The Flash, about killing her in front of Barry, about making him watch while she carved Iris' chest...He must be haunted by those words, especially because he had a visual to go with them: the murder of Hannibal Bates by that speedster from the future, while Bates was impersonating Iris.

"So, what do you think?" She asked him before kissing his temple. "Wanna let the city know who you truly are, speedster?"

A hero, that's who Barry Allen was. Yes, he'd killed people, because he'd been at war or because he'd felt betrayed and alone in his crusade against those who were persecuting his kind.

In a few decades, history books might even gloss over his crimes, because by then he'd be recognized as the first person who fought for meta-human rights when no one else did.

Nowadays, dangerous meta-humans like the Mardon brothers were locked up in a secure facility called A.R.G.U.S, all the way in Star City. The facility was equally supervised by the Feds, the City Council, and the board of the company, which included Ray Palmer. Even the famous local vigilante Green Arrow was said to regularly visit the place, so chances of the prisoners being abused there were very low.

"Being the man you love is all I care to be," he replied as he leaned back and gazed at her, and he looked so happy now, she couldn't help but smile back.

"Well, that's all nice and good, but I need you to impress my parents," she teased him as she dropped a sweet kiss on his lips. "And the only time they were impressed by you was when you publicly helped save the city, so..."

"I can do that again, sure," he played along. "If Captain West promises that none of his subordinates will waste time trying to shoot me."

"Deal," Iris decided before hopping off his lap when his hands started wandering all over her body. "Nuh-uh, speedster! You're not seducing me into a _third round of sex_!"

"Had to try," Barry commented with a mischievous grin that had her heart rate pick up a bit.

Iris managed to get ready without the shot of vegetable juice after all, and she had the time to enjoy the breakfast Barry made for her since he offered to run her to CCPD.

It was all so very domestic, and she _loved it. _Her, Iris West, career-oriented woman, had her heart beating fast from watching her boyfriend _watch her_ stuff her face with pancakes. Ridiculous.

_That's how it goes when you're in love, right? No big deal,_ she reasoned without giving too much thought into the fact that she'd never actually felt like that before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments are always appreciated!
> 
> Quick final showdown against Goldface and Blacksmith then more West-Allen for the last chapter!


End file.
